“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark,” Marcellus tells Horatio early in William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”. The line is a window into the moral rot at the centre of the grasp for power that the play hinges on. The line takes on a different meaning when the setting is transposed from Denmark to the fictional state of San Andreas, based on Southern California, in the game Grand Theft Auto. Grand Theft Auto is an action-adventure video game set in a desolate urbanised location where the protagonist completes missions and side-quests to rise through a criminal underworld. The game, named after the act of motor vehicle theft, examines other kinds of criminality than the murder and subterfuge of Shakespeare’s Denmark. Out-of-work actors Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen cast and produced a live virtual production of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” in the world of Grand Theft Auto, and Shakespeare’s play suddenly became the site for an intriguing merging of classic drama and new technology turning “Grand Theft Hamlet” into a thoughtful, and surprisingly emotionally resonant work of art.
‘Grand Theft Hamlet’ – celebrating Shakespeare through gameplay
