Chekov

I remember once some time back hearing that Chekov said to someone concerning a character in one of his, Chekov's, plays: "You must remember, he wears yellow shoes." I did not know what he meant then but now I have an inkling, having just come back from London's Old Vic Theatre and seeing "The Cherry Orchard".
At the beginning of the play Lophakin, the serf made good - or at least, made wealthy - is telling to a servant about himself and in so doing he mentions that he now wears yellow shoes. Why tell someone this? Because, I suppose, in his eyes it meant that he was now an important someone, not the serf he once was, but a person of distinction.
But, of course, he isn't. He has made a lot of money but that doesn't mean he has successfully transformed himself into a cultured gentleman or, which is more important to people of an upper class, into a member of the upper class. You can't do that by wearing what you think will be accepted, like yellow shoes - which would not be accepted. But Lophakin doesn't think this way.
Reminds me a little of Malvolio who wore yellow stocckings which were laughed at.
Stanislavsky apparently directed the play as if it were a tragedy whereas Chekov had regarded it as a comedy. There are tragic elements in it of course but they are not of the highest level in whih, say, a great person is brought down to ignominy. The wealthy family in "The Cherry Orchard" is brought down but it's not "the end of the world" for them. Comedy, to Chekov, I think, meant that the characters are living lives which do not reflect the way society is changing; they are stuck in the past. When a man like Lophakin comes along and attempts to shake them out of the coma-like state they are in, he becomes ridiculous but they become absurd. And there is a high comic element in this.
Chekov broke one of his rules in this play: he said that if there is a gun on the wall in Act 1 it must be fired before the end of the play. Well, there was a gun brandished in Act 1 but it was never fired.