Dracula Review – Cynthia Erivo’s brilliant modern vampire gets her fangs removed in a one-woman show | platform

AAre people born evil? asks Glinda, the “good witch” played by Ariana Grande in Wicked, the musical that stars Cynthia Erivo as the green-skinned intruder, Elphaba. Bram Stoker’s classic story about the evil element knows the answer to this question. Dracula, the vampire of Ur and the ultimate outsider to the literary canon, is played by Erivo, along with every other character in this deliciously sinister tale of the blood-sucking count.

Except he’s not deliciously sinister in director Kip Williams’ theater reinvention. Williams has proven that he can turn old stories into new ones. His one-woman version of The Picture of Dorian Gray was ridiculously original. His style in Jean Genet’s The Maids was inspired by punk music. What happened here?

In appearance, Erivo makes for a cool modern Dracula with her piercings and tattoos, as she first appears on stage in a jacket and trousers, all sharp angles and nerves. She also has long, pointed nails, reminiscent of her thin, knife-like fingers Nosferatu striker Murnau.

A team of camera operators transmit what is happening on stage to a giant screen. Live images are combined with pre-recorded footage. This use of technology has been used countless times on the West End stage, by Williams and others, but it seems ill-suited to the horror genre, taking away from horror.

Erivo looks smaller and more vulnerable on stage and your eyes are drawn away from her to the close-ups on screen. Sometimes the images are superimposed on each other and appear hallucinatory. It shows what the technology can do but the procedure itself is largely static.

This is because the story is narrated by Erivo, with only snippets of dialogue, giving the feel of an audiobook accompanied by on-screen illustrations. It mostly includes notes from journals and maintains the form of book letters. Why, when it serves no dramatic purpose other than to remind us of the original form of the story?

Erivo narrates quickly, with accents that distinguish the characters along with quick changes of wigs and costumes. So, a pink and red wig and an African accent for Count Dracula, a striped shirt and a cropped British accent for Jonathan Harker, the lawyer who becomes imprisoned in his castle, a high-pitched innocent voice for Harker’s fiancée, Mina, and a blonde wig for her friend Lucy, who falls victim to Dracula. But despite the speed, it remains calm, without any fever or danger at all. The characters seem so simplistic that they border on comedy. Most ridiculous of all is Van Helsing, the vampire slayer, who looks like a gothic version of Gandalf with long white locks and a strange goatee. Erivo’s accomplishment in narration also seems to distract from the actual acting, which is very neutral in her physical and facial expressions.

The production seeks to focus on the battle between fear and desire in the story but there is neither cold nor heat here. Dracula poses no threat, even when he starts sucking blood in Whitby. There is no devilishness or dark charisma in Dracula’s frequent flashes of fangs. The three sharp-toothed female vampires don’t bring a sense of temptation either. A giant love heart appears on stage at one point, more a box of chocolates than sexually suggestive. The snow scene is more attractive, but there is so much sterility in the storytelling that it undermines the building of emotional or atmospheric momentum.

For many, this story is seen as a cautionary tale for dangerous out-migrants. Dracula travels to British shores and Stoker likens him to a plague-like insect. This was not chosen at all here, despite its current importance in the real world.

Erivo gives us a tantalizing taste of her singing voice at the end and it raises your hopes but is aborted in a few lines – wonderfully sung – rather than a song. Sadly, the production plays little to Erivo’s strengths, which would have been better reimagined as Dracula the Musical.