Desdemona and Ellen Terry who all played the melodramatic role of womanly innocence traduced and overwhelmed to the hilt. In 1839, Samuel Phelps and William Charles Macready alternated in the roles of Othello and Iago at the Haymarket Theatre with Helen Faucit in the role of Desdemona. In 1881, Ellen Terry performed the role at London's Lyceum Theatre with Edwin Booth and Henry Irving alternating in the roles of Othello and Iago. The production was a great artistic and financial success. In the twentieth century, Peggy Ashcroft played the character opposite Paul Robeson in London's Savoy Theatre in 1930, and Uta
Desdemona 1669. Pepys was present for a performance of "Othello" at the Cockpit on 11 October 1660, noting in his diary: "a pretty lady that sat by me called out to see Desdemona smothered." In the eighteenth century, the play was sometimes cut to heighten the tragic nobility of the protagonist. Bell's acting version, for example, omitted several moments including Desdemona's conversation with Emilia before her death—a death which is accomplished in Bells' version by stabbing rather than strangulation. In the nineteenth century, behind-the-scenes events in the lives of the play's performers garnered for "Othello" a shocking and sensational reputation. Charles