Sam Crane aka Rustic Mascara presents "the first ever full production of Hamlet inside Grand Theft Auto Online" on the PlayStation 5 version of the game. The performance will also be livestreamed on YouTube Monday 4th July at 7.45 pm (UK time).
Rustic Mascara is the nom the plume of Sam Crane, who describes himself as "a performance and video artist who subverts and appropriates the notoriously violent world of online open world video games and reimagines them as a meditative space for live performance."
A talented stage actor, critically acclaimed for his performances at the National Theatre, Shakespeare’s Globe, in The West End, and on Broadway, Sam Crane began his career playing the renowned Polish artist and theater maker Tadeusz Kantor in A little Requiem for Kantor at the London International Mime Festival, went on to perform with contemporary physical theater pioneers Frantic Assembly, and most recently garnered stellar reviews and an Off West End nomination for his solo performance in Rage of Narcissus by Sergio Blanco. He has collaborated with influential artists such as Sir Mark Rylance, Katie Mitchell, and Robert Icke. A prolific screen actor, Sam has appeared in several television series including The Crown (Netflix), The Trial of Christine Keeler (BBC), COBRA (Sky), Poldark (BBC), Endeavour (ITV) and Call The Midwife (BBC). In the guise of his alter ego Rustic Mascara, he attracted over 50 thousand views in two weeks to his attempts to perform Shakespeare inside Grand Theft Auto Online. His machinima were featured in film retrospectives and art exhibitions in Europe (Videopark, Uzice, Serbia) and the USA (Pandemic Projections: Visions for a New Normal, New Jersey), among others.
Read an interview with Sam Crane
LINK: Rustic Mascara
