Dracula review: Cynthia Erivo’s striking Dracula is muted in one-woman show

Cynthia Erivo plays Dracula and every other character in Kip Williams’s one-woman reinvention of Bram Stoker’s tale. Williams, who has refreshed older texts with striking results in past work, delivers a production that never quite finds the theatrical life it promises.

Erivo looks the part of a modern Dracula, with piercings, tattoos, a sharp-angled costume and long, pointed nails that recall Nosferatu. A team of camera operators feeds live and pre-recorded images to a giant screen, but the technological effects often distance rather than immerse, leaving the action feeling static and dominated by closeups and superimpositions.

The story is told largely through diary entries and swift narration, preserving the book’s epistolary shape but functioning more like an illustrated audiobook than a drama.

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