Cherry Orchard...Comedy or Tragedy

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.Is Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard a comedy or a tragedy? When one approaches the works of Anton Chekhov numerous reactions arise ranging from despondency to absolute fascination. For a century, critics have pored over the plays of the great Russian and come to the former conclusion. Many have commented on his bleakness and joyless characters. Robert Louis Jackson writes that Chekhov is “the creator of dreary, sad often mediocre human type. Russian criticism as a whole, however, has never subscribed to the image of an optimistic or didactic Chekhov”. The great director Stanislavski highlighted the melancholy aspects of Chekhov’s play when staging them. Unfortunately, the error in these initial reactions was not that they were completely wrong, but that they miss the full point. Chekhov’s plays did have bleak elements to them, but at the same time he considered them comedies. By creating comedic undertones in a seemingly tragic world, Chekhov established a powerful element to his art. Initially the reader may question this declaration, but a close examination proves that the plays, though unorthodox, do embody comedy. Chekhov had initially intended his last play to be a comedy, “Vaudeville [a musical comedy] in fact, and though he may have given up that last idea he still subtitles his play “A Comedy in Four Acts”. Unfortunately for Chekhov, the most common reaction to the play was typified by his wife: “by the fourth act I burst out sobbing”. Stanislavsky, the play’s director, decided to interpret the play as a drama, against Chekhov’s wishes. The debate over whether the play is in fact a comedy or a drama still goes on to this day. At first sight it appears to be Chekhov himself who calls for tears from his actors: his own directions indicate that many of the speeches are to be delivered ‘through tears’. Nevertheless as rehearsals were under way Chekhov clarified
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