SOURCE: "The Cherry Orchard as Comedy," in Educational Theatre Journal, Vol. X, No. 1, March 1958, pp. 21-9.

In the following essay, Latham assembles evidence for her contention that The Cherry Orchard is not a tragedy, as it was commonly viewed, but rather a comedy, as Chekhov insisted. Latham states: "In his revelation of the ludicrous in human nature Chekhov successfully achieves a very rare blend of sympathetic and judicial comedy" in the play.

Chekhov suffered during his lifetime from bad productions of his plays. Even Stanislavsky, the founder of the Moscow Art Theatre, misunderstood the nature of his comedies, The Seagull and The Cherry Orchard, and after the production of the latter Chekhov wrote to his wife: "How awful it is! An act that ought to take twelve minutes at most lasts forty minutes. There is only one thing I can say: Stanislavsky has ruined my play for me...