Anton Chekhov intended The Cherry Orchard as a farce, yet when Konstantin Stanislavsky's Moscow Art Theater decided to produce the play, it was presented as a tragedy, according to Stanislavsky's view of the play. Chekhov was so frustrated by the failure of Stanislavsky and other commentators to share his vision of the play as a farce that he burned all copies of the manuscript except for one that remained in Moscow. Chekhov was suffering in the last stages of tuberculosis, yet still managed to make the trip to Moscow to attend rehearsals almost daily. Despite his conflicts with Stanislavsky about how the play should be interpreted, he kept a close watch on the production by attending the rehearsals.

In his The Breaking String: The Plays of Anton Chekhov, Maurice Valency asserted:

It is strangely ironical that Chekhov never saw his play produced as & comedy, as he...