ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Shakespeare has been performed in a lot of obscure places, but the film "Grand Theft Hamlet" finds a new one. Critic Bob Mondello says the action is full of sound and fury, largely because it takes place entirely inside the video game Grand Theft Auto.
BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: To be or not to be an actor - that was a serious question back during pandemic lockdowns. Live theaters were closed. Gathering indoors, even with masks, was a nonstarter for a lot of people. In 2021, out-of-work actor pals Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen were communicating mostly through their video game avatars.
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MARK OOSTERVEEN: (As self) Just run up these hills.
MONDELLO: In GTA Grand Theft Auto.
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OOSTERVEEN: (As self) If you go somewhere kind of rural, they...
SAM CRANE: (As self) Yeah.
OOSTERVEEN: (As self) Well, they won't drive up here, will they?
MONDELLO: They'd been tooling around the GTA landscapes in stolen golf carts, the police on their tails.
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CRANE: (As self) Look at this.
OOSTERVEEN: (As self) Look at what?
MONDELLO: They hopped a wall and found themselves in what looks like the Hollywood Bowl...
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CRANE: (As self) It's like a massive kind of arena.
OOSTERVEEN: (As self) Oh.
MONDELLO: ...A huge amphitheater with a stage.
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CRANE: (As self) That's so cool.
MONDELLO: Well, they're actors.
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CRANE: (As self) I wonder if you could actually stage something here.
OOSTERVEEN: (As self) What, like a - put on a play?
CRANE: (As self) Yeah.
OOSTERVEEN: (As self) It would be difficult because, generally, you know, people are violent in the game. They blow stuff up, and they shoot people.
CRANE: (As self) Yeah, but people are violent in Shakespeare. It's brutal. It's...
OOSTERVEEN: (As self) Yes (laughter).
CRANE: (As self) Like, in "Hamlet," everyone dies. It's perfect. Come on.
MONDELLO: No sooner had they decided to take a stab at it, then a couple of audience members show up...
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CRANE: (As self) Oh, someone's here, look. Hi.
MONDELLO: ...Shooting.
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CRANE: (As self) If I could just request that you refrain from killing each other.
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CRANE: (As self) And don't kill the actors, either. Yeah, start. Start, Mark.
OOSTERVEEN: (As self) If you do meet Horatio...
MONDELLO: As is the custom in GTA, everyone has guns...
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OOSTERVEEN: (As character) Bid them make haste.
CRANE: (As character) I think I hear them.
MONDELLO: ...Rocket launchers, too.
CRANE: (As character) Stand, ho. Who's there?
OOSTERVEEN: (As character) Friends to this ground, I think?
CRANE: (As character) I don't think so.
OOSTERVEEN: (As character) And liegemen to the Dane.
MONDELLO: And they're both dead.
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CRANE: (As self) All right, we did pretty well to get as far as we did there.
OOSTERVEEN: (As self) The cops turned up in a helicopter (laughter).
MONDELLO: So, OK, good start. Could they make more of it? Sam's wife, Pinny Grylls, is a documentary filmmaker. She starts recording everything they do inside Grand Theft Auto online - this film is technically a documentary - and she helps them make a promotional video within the game to get other gamers involved.
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CRANE: (As self) We are putting on a production of "Hamlet" in GTA online for the first time ever.
MONDELLO: The video shoot becomes a battleground.
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CRANE: (As self) So come and audition. Police trying to stop us. You can't stop our [expletive].
MONDELLO: But that makes it seem pretty cool.
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CRANE: (As self) [Expletive]. They got me.
MONDELLO: And some randos (ph) do show up to audition...
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OOSTERVEEN: (As self) Oh, my God. They're really coming down now. Look.
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UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As self) Hi.
CRANE: (As self) That's quite an entrance.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As self) You can call me Shah (ph).
JEN COHN: (As self) I'm Jen.
TILLY STEELE: (As self) I'm Tilly.
MONDELLO: ...Including a naked green alien who doesn't know any Shakespeare but recites a bit of the Quran.
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UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character, speaking Arabic).
MONDELLO: It quickly becomes clear that performing in the amphitheater doesn't make sense when all this digital world's a stage. So they start hatching plans to do Act 2 in a subway, Act 4 atop a high-flying blimp.
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OOSTERVEEN: (As self) If you can stand on top of the actual balloon...
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As self) Whoa.
OOSTERVEEN: (As self) ...And act out a scene while it's moving.
MONDELLO: If they can stop falling off to their death.
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OOSTERVEEN: (As self) It's like Shakespeare on a billion-dollar budget.
MONDELLO: Also intriguing is the mid-pandemic camaraderie that develops.
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OOSTERVEEN: (As self) Keep coming across these people who want to help us.
MONDELLO: Reassuring out-of-work principals who have understandable bouts of melancholy. Ones that track so well with the lines they speak as the melancholy Dane that it doesn't always sound like they're just acting.
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CRANE: (As Hamlet) Slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles.
MONDELLO: It all adds up to a unique "Hamlet," and I say that as a theater critic who's caught 37 before this - not one of them with flamethrowers, rocket launchers or flying DeLoreans. The film "Grand Theft Hamlet" is constantly surprising, breathtakingly imaginative and a great introduction to Shakespeare or, I guess, to video games - whichever you need introducing to. I'm Bob Mondello.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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