Grand Theft Hamlet and The Creative Process

It’s a bit mad to think that the film I resonated most with this year was a documentary about two men trying to do a production of Hamlet on GTA. Actually maybe it’s not; maybe that makes perfect sense. This film encapsulates, almost perfectly, for me what it is to be a theatre maker.

In the film the two actors stumble across a massive theatre, in the online world of popular game Grand Theft Auto, and wonder what it would be like to do a production of Hamlet in it. They have no idea why they want to do that, why it would be good, or why it would be useful, but they have an unarticulated inkling that it might be a good thing to do. For me this is the start of all creative processes; a feeling. Not a thought… but a feeling that this might be something worth doing. Naturally this feeling is also mixed with the idea that it might do something for you. This is the starting place for all creative endeavours. A feeling.

In a creative process I try and work out why this would be useful and what’s drawing me to it. This is what drives me through the ups and downs of a creative process. For the guys in this film it’s a sense of agency in an entertainment world coming out of lock down. This is where the heart of the film opens up for me; this is a film about actors wanting purpose amid a world where the theatre is dying, the world may never return, and everything is stopped. The film gets interesting because when the inevitable obstacles in the creative process come up they don’t know WHY they’re doing the project beyond for themselves which leads them to existential crisis. When Dipo (the actor playing hamlet in the show) drops out they start to question the entire project. Because they can’t answer those big questions WHY am I doing this and FOR WHO. They are left throwing the doubt on themselves, and their own need from the project, rather than the projects worth its self. There’s a particularly moving bit where, after Dipo leaves, they talk about how much they want a job and how this job isn’t a real job. They lose faith in the project and in their own self worth. This illustrates the necessity of knowing WHY you’re doing the thing and how it’s BIGGER than you.

They never really answer that beyond hopes that they’ll have a sense of agency over their own career. They celebrate when the RSC say they’ll come and watch it which is so interesting because the film then becomes about the fragility of the ego of an actor… which is strong enough to drive the whole endeavour.

The obstacles thrown in their way are massive; not just people blowing them up, people dropping out, the police killing them, having massive in game problems… but also the creative tensions that come in your professional and private lives. All these things happen before any one is even signed up to do it. When they start to get people involved they get an actor who’s a star (Dipo Ola IRL star), an actor who wants to act that isn’t, a real person who is desperate to be themselves because they can’t in the real world, a real person that is sick and needs something to do, and a whole host of randomly kind people that don’t even speak but give their time and energy. There’s also some people that inexplicably hang around because they like it and they can’t, quite, articulate why. These people then become the reason the thing has to happen. The big answer to the WHY.

The reason I keep talking about the WHY isn’t an arbitrary thing about attracting funders or producers to a project; it’s literally the reason why the thing should exist and we should carry on. The reason we need this isn’t just because we doubt the project it’s because a project also has a huge personal tole. Mainly that, I’ve found, it sometimes makes it hard to maintain relationships. In the film one of the actors partners confesses that they’ve grown distant to their partner and have started playing the game just to spend time with them. The two actors relationship is also strained; they start to bicker a bit. They are lonely. They stop spending time with their kids. They’re immersed in this world trying to make a show for no other reason than to have agency over their own careers that are stalled in a world that is failing society. There is a myth about what we’re expected to suffer, and sacrifice, in order to create art that I reject bitterly but the truth is that these projects take up a lot of headspace and other things suffer. There is also little pay. We have to find a balance to look after ourselves and our lives. To justify this at ALL means we have to come back to the WHY. WHY are we doing this? If this is just for us is it worth it? GTA Hamlet becomes so much more than that. We have to make sure our projects are more than that as well.

At the end of the film we see bits of the production and it looks great. After the show all the people involved seem delighted to have done it. What’s interesting is that we don’t see the full impact on the person who needed it because the world won’t accept them, the sick people, the actors… and we still don’t hear from silent and kind people. But they came on the process. They made the show. They stuck with it and they could have just stopped at any point. The show is about them now. And it feels like that’s the good in it. On a personal level they do it and the actors who made it are left where they started; with nothing changing. Little consequence. And perhaps a strained relationship with each other. For me that’s how it feels. You’re tired. You’ve done it. People liked it maybe. It achieved it’s goals maybe. But nothing changes… and then we have to go back to ourselves and our lives. This is why it’s imperative we look after those when we do it. No project is worth alienating ourselves and our loved ones.

I loved it. And I just think we have to hang on a WHY that’s bigger than ourselves. Projects find them. We have to as well. If we don’t; we’re just egos damaging everyone around us.