Cynthia Erivo’s Dracula is tiresome

Estate summary

Lloyd Evans offers a sharply negative response to Kip Williams’ Dracula at the Noël Coward Theatre. He argues that the extensive use of screens and cameras distances the audience from Cynthia Erivo, weakening the sense of sharing a live performance with an actor. His objections extend to the production’s changing voices, costumes and presentation of the characters, which he finds unconvincing rather than theatrically illuminating. The review questions whether the technical complexity earns its place in the storytelling or instead makes the audience watch an elaborate television-like construction. Evans finds the strongest connection with Erivo late in the evening, when she sings. His account is useful as a dissenting critical judgement beside more enthusiastic reviews: it identifies the very relationship between filmed images and live presence that other critics admire as the production’s central weakness. The article also reviews another play; this Estate account concerns its Dracula section.

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