Dracula review: Cynthia Erivo is overwhelmed in tech-heavy production
Dracula review and star rating: ★★
How much further can this trend for incorporating live video in theatre productions go? In Kip Williams’ adaptation of Dracula, it is often not like being in the theatre at all. Far too often it feels like watching a film at the cinema, with giant video screens playing pre-recorded segments. The director Jamie Lloyd was largely responsible for bringing the trend into the mainstream around a decade ago and some of his productions like Sunset Boulevard have already been more style than substance because of an overuse of live video. But this production of Dracula isn’t even stylish: it’s an overwhelming and relentless video experience with an overwhelmed actor at the centre.
Cynthia Eviro, famous from the Wicked movies, misses her lines on a number of occasions in this intense adaptation, in which she plays 23 different characters from Bram Stoker’s novel. The roles are clearly overwhelming and there are very few actors who can pull off this feat (one of whom is Succession’s Sarah Snook who did a similar thing but successfully in 2024 in another of Williams’ productions, The Picture of Dorian Gray). It’s not that Erivo is bad: fairly often she manages to shapeshift between characters fairly convincingly, adapting her accent from posh British to American and from male to female.
Dracula with Cynthia Erivo: overwhelming and tech-heavy
Rather than Erivo switching physically between characters by playing one role and then moving position on stage to play another, she almost always engages with the other 22 characters she’s playing via video screens displaying pre-recorded segments. It means in practice that most of the action is taking place on screens rather than in the theatre, with Erivo often standing with her back to the audience reciting lines to other characters looming above the stage.
It’s deeply unsatisfying and at points very frustrating: I didn’t come here to watch a film about Dracula, I came here to watch a live show. The production disassociates you with much of the feeling and heft of live performance because there are scarce moments in which Erivo is actually acting and facing the audience for more than a fleeting moment. Too often she’s playing to the cameras (people on stage dressed in black constantly film her) or not visible on stage, hidden behind massive projections. The device doesn’t work: it doesn’t give the impression that Erivo is talking to ‘real’ characters on the screens, more like she’s just talking to a pre-recorded video.
Williams’ text is as lifted from Stoker’s book too faithfully, meaning there is too much narrative to get through and some scenes feel overlong. There isn’t enough time spent exploring the key moments but tonnes of story to whittle through. When the action is focused on the live theatre, the props feel like such second fiddles to the screen that you rarely buy into what’s going on. You don’t believe anyone’s in the coffin, nor that we’re in Dracula’s castle or in some basement supposedly overrun with rats or wherever else. Video takes precedence to the point where what’s on stage loses much of its meaning, chiefly Erivo’s acting.
By the time we finally meet Erivo’s Dracula that too feels underpowered. It’s a fleeting moment, like so much else of the live acting, sidelined in favour of loud music and special effects. Many of the characters are engrossing, especially Erivo’s Dr John Seward, but there’s rarely a biting point, pardon the pun, be it tension or fear. Instead, the snippets you spend with Erivo live are engulfed by the production’s desire to simply show off.
Dracula with Cynthia Erivo is playing until 30 May at the Noel Coward Theatre