How did Anton Chekhov describe the genre of The Cherry Orchard?

Anton Chekhov described his final play, The Cherry Orchard, as "a comedy, in places even a farce."12

Throughout his career, Chekhov frequently insisted that his mature dramas were comedies rather than tragedies, and he grew distressed when producers and directors treated them with excessive solemnity or overemphasized the characters' complaints about the futility of their lives. Despite his specific intent for the work to be performed with a "light touch," audiences and critics have often perceived a sense of tragedy in the play's depiction of the decline of the Russian landowning class.21