In my opinion, [The Ecstasy of Rita Joe] establishes Ryga as the most exciting talent writing for the stage in Canada today….

The Ecstasy of Rita Joe has been more widely seen and heard than many new Canadian plays and … is closely related to his published work, especially his novels Hungry Hills (1963) and Ballad of a Stonepicker (1966)…. (p. 155)

If Ryga rejects romantic and physical love, he does not conclude that meaningful human relationships are impossible. On the contrary, he frequently shows a bond between individuals which he clearly believes to be more exalted than love in the usual sense. Ordinarily this is a relationship in a family (between brother and brother in "Indian", father and daughter in Rita Joe, boy and aunt in Hungry Hills). Occasionally, as in the father's grief over the loss of his horse in Hungry Hills and in the comic episode of Timothy and...