CHARLES DICKENS ON FECHTER'S IAGO

Charles Dickens, for example, in his praising of his ‘intimate friend’ the thespian actor Mr Fechter,  makes clear his distaste for the usual fare on offer in Victorian British theatres:

[Fechter’s] Iago is not in the least picturesque according to the conventional ways of frowning, sneering, diabolically grinning and elaborately doing everything else that would induce Othello to run him through the body very early in the play. Mr Fechter’s is the Iago who could, and did, make friends; who could dissect his master’s soul, without flourishing his scalpel as if it were a walking-stick; who could overpower Emilia by other arts than a sign-of-the-Saracen’s-head grimness [...]. Mr Fechter’s Iago is no more in the conventional psychological mode than in the conventional hussar pantaloons and boots.