Kopit's play [The Day The Whores Came Out To Play Tennis] is one act long, as opposed to the four acts of [Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard]. He utilizes only six characters, while the Russian uses sixteen. It necessarily follows that the brevity of the later work precludes the total development to be found in the longer play. The main idea, however, is exactly the same. In Kopit's play the pilot committee of the Cherry Valley Country Club is concerned because a group of whores have taken over the tennis courts. Throughout the play, they talk about the problem, yet do nothing to correct it. The play closes with the whores retaining possession of the courts and pelting the club house with tennis balls. At the same time the owners are sitting in the nursery of the club house bemoaning the loss of their establishment.

The country club serves the same purpose as Chekhov's estate, for it, too, is the home of what the playwright considers to be a degenerate aristocracy. The aristocratic characters of Cherry Valley are certainly depicted as having seen better days. The representative of the generation in line to inherit the establishment, Herbert, rocks on a hobbyhorse as his heritage crumbles about his ears. The hobbyhorse is symbolic of his monomania, for he is unwilling to acknowledge the threat to his way of life posed by the whores.

The overall tone of the plays is remarkably similar. Kopit's characters, in addition to remaining passive towards a force that is out to destroy them, are drawn in same comic-pathetic vein as those of Chekhov.

The whores in Kopit's play are analogous to Lopahin in The Cherry Orchard. They represent a lower stratum in the society of the day. Their possession of the tennis courts makes them a definite threat to the country club. In a sense, the gap that exists between a group of whores and the country club is analogous to the gap that existed between the newly freed serfs and the Russian aristocracy, for the girls have been liberated by the increasing sexual freedom of our society. (pp. 19-20)

It is clear that the main idea of both plays is identical. Yet that in itself is not enough to suggest that Kopit borrowed his entire story from Chekhov. Specific similarities, however, do establish his debt to the earlier playwright.

The setting for the first act of Chekhov's play is described as: "A room that is still called the nursery … Dawn, the sun will soon be rising. It is May, the cherry trees are in blossom but in the orchard it is cold with a morning frost. The windows in the room are closed."

The setting for Kopit's play is virtually identical: "A room which has always been called the Nursery. Dawn. Sun rises during the scene. May—the tennis nets are up, but it is cold on the courts with the frost of early morning. The bay windows at the rear, which overlook the courts, are closed."

There are other specific analogies, for Kopit's play takes place at the Cherry Valley Country Club. The similarity between the title of Chekov's play and the name of Kopit's country club is certainly not accidental.

The similarities can also be extended with regard to character. The people in Chekhov's play are Russian aristocrats; those in Kopit's are upper-class Jewish-American aristocrats with Russian sounding names. Kopit even goes so far as to name one of his characters Gayve, in obvious deference to Chekhov's Gayeff. In Chekhov's play Lyuba is the vain monomaniac, while in Kopit's work it is the entire pilot committee of the country club who are excessively vain. (pp. 20-1)

Herbert, who is the generation in line to inherit the country club, comments on a book that he is reading at two points in the play…. The references to … specific literary characters make it clear that the book Herbert is reading is Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. There are two reasons why Herbert's interest in that particular book is of significance. First, Kopit's play opens at dawn, as does Chekhov's, so the sun is literally rising. That, however, is of secondary importance. Hemingway's novel deals with the same struggle for prominence manifested in both plays. Brett Ashley is the pre-Versailles generation—the old order. Robert Cohen represents the new generation which, in the course of the novel, replaces the old one. Jake Barnes, the character through whom the story is told, is the third party, the observer. Again, it is Lady Brett's vanity and unwillingness to change which causes her final ruin. (p. 21)

In one sense, The Day The Whores Came Out To Play Tennis is a parody of The Cherry Orchard. The opening stage directions, similarity of situation, name of the country club, and Russian-sounding Jewish names all indicate Kopit's conscious light mockery of the characters and situation that Chekhov treated with such depth and seriousness in The Cherry Orchard. In demonstrating his knowledge of the thematic relationship between Chekhov's play and the biblical passage [from Ecclesiastes used as a preface to The Sun Also Rises], Kopit adds two allusions to Hemingway's novel in a manner not integrally related to the play's action. By alluding to another work of literature dealing with the same main idea as both his play and that of Chekhov, Kopit provides further evidence of his literary sophistication. Part of this sophistication is a distaste for writers who, whether consciously or unconsciously, vary previously developed literary themes in their own work. This distaste is evidenced, rather obtusely, by having young Herbert ride a hobbyhorse while referring to The Sun Also Rises. The hobbyhorse, a symbol of monomania taken from The Life and Opinions of Tristam Shandy Esq., becomes, in Kopit's play, a symbol of literary redundancy; the redundancy of those writers—Chekhov and Hemingway—who use the ecclesiastical theme as the main idea in their own literary works.

By carefully and consciously weaving his perceptions about the common thematic statements of The Sun Also Rises and The Cherry Orchard into a play which is an obtuse formal parody of Chekhov's play, Kopit has produced a work which provides the reader with an opportunity to play a game of critical "botticelli." (p. 22)