Perhaps Aristotle’s prioritizing of plot over visual performance in theater does not apply to Shakespeare’s Othello (especially given the complicated history of this play’s performance) since Othello’s race is of such an importance to this play in a way Othello’s plot cannot capture alone. More specifically, Othello’s status as a racial “other” alone among racially homogenous society must be translated to the play’s performance or else a major theme of this play (i.e. Othello’s self-doubt and understanding of the arbitrary prejudice the other characters harbor against him) would be lost or, worse, misconstrued. This could be exemplified by Othello’s audiences’ reaction to Edmund Kean’s “tawny Othello” as opposed to its reaction to Ira Aldridge’s