Cynthia Erivo returns to the London stage to play 23 roles in a stage retelling of Bram Stoker's classic vampire novel. Kip Williams employs an aggressively techy, film-heavy, auteur approach that blends pre-recorded footage with live feeds. The production uses far more pre-recording than Williams' Dorian Gray and often places giant screen versions of Erivo at the centre of group scenes. The live Erivo frequently appears reduced to a background Dr John Seward, standing aside while multiple pre-recorded Erivos dominate. The heavy reliance on video undermines immediacy and diminishes the presence of the live performance.
"But in Dorian Gray, Snook's live performance always felt like the main event. In , Williams' virtuoso use of film gets in the way. There's a lot of debate over whether 'live video' - that is to say, a performance relayed via video feed to a big screen on the stage - counts as theatre, and the answer I will give anybody to this is 'yes'."
"Having spent her twenties making a name for herself on the London stage, she hasn't trodden our boards since a Menier Chocolate Factory production of The Color Purple kicked her career into overdrive a decade ago. But the Stockwell-born actor was always going to come home at some point, and offers the star the chance to show her range: taking on 23 roles in a stage retelling of Bram Stoker's classic vampire novel."
Read at Time Out London
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