Othello questions in Shakespeare's text. Companies have also chosen to share the role between several actors during a performance. Canadian playwright Ann-Marie MacDonald's 1988 award-winning play Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) is a revision of "Othello" and "Romeo and Juliet" in which an academic deciphers a cryptic manuscript she believes to be the original source for the tragedies, and is transported into the plays themselves. "Othello" opened at the Donmar Warehouse in London on 4 December 2007, directed by Michael Grandage, with Chiwetel Ejiofor as Othello, Ewan McGregor as Iago, Tom Hiddleston as Cassio, Kelly Reilly as Desdemona and Michelle Fairley
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