SOURCE: "Critical Reception," in The Cherry Orchard: Catastrophe and Comedy, Twayne Publishers, 1994, pp. 15-28.

In the essay below, Rayfield surveys European and American responses to, and interpretations of, The Cherry Orchard throughout the twentiety century.

The Cherry Orchard began to reverberate in Russian literature even before it was performed or published. The first reaction, in November 1903, was that of the state censor Vasili Vereshchagin, who found two passages of social criticism in Trofimov's speeches in act 2 too out-spoken and forced Chekhov to substitute less biting passages. In December, when Chekhov came to Moscow to attend rehearsals, the great director of the Moscow Arts Theater Konstantin Stanislavsky, and many of his actors appeared to react to the play as though it were a tragedy or a straightforward political diatribe. Stanislavsky's telegram of congratulation ended, "we wept in the last act."¹ His wife Maria Lilina, who was to paly Ania...