"Playwright Emil Sher has transformed his insightful radio play into a taut script that is constructed well and provides an emotionally balanced perspective on one family's painful experience...The opening sequence set a powerful mood for the play. The lights dim, a spotlight appears, and we hear the unnatural rhythm of a young girl's laboured breath...Tina Ramsay is the central figure - a preteen quadriplegic whose presence is strongly felt, yet she is never seen. This choice allows us to transcend the visual cues, relying only on vocal effects performed live from backstage...It might surprise you that Sher's script offers numerous light moments to offset the emotional weight of the situation. The author's choice to incorporate the story of Noah's Ark is a good one. It's both entertaining and insightful, illustrating how a man must choose who lives and who dies...Mourning Dove doesn't offer a judgment on the actions of the father, but it does pose the question: "How would you feel in this situation?"

"What makes this play engaging drama, rather than topically-motivated melodrama, is a focus on the family dynamics...It also allows for the development of characters who are compelling...One of the most effective things about this show is that we never see Tina on the stage. At most, all we see is a pattern of lights on the floor in the stage right. This decision is effective in a sneakily subversive way; with nobody to physically inhabit Tina's space, the pattern of light can represent any loved one the audience projects onto it. This touch allows the audience a more personal stake in the issues involved. ..If someone is suffering and there is no chance of their ever living a "normal", fulfilling existence is it more merciful to kill them or let them live? In this difficult matter we all have our own beliefs. But whether we believe that Doug's course of action is right or wrong, Mourning Dove shows us that he is no monster - just painfully human. So before we judge him, we should at least attempt to understand his choice, and to this end the play does a good job of developing just the arena to learn. More importantly, and to the production's credit, the end of the play allows the audience to come to their own conclusions."

"I wondered about the need for Keith to be a disabled character, but thankfully the use of an "outsider" figure such as Keith - or at least a character who feels as such - comes to make complete sense in terms of the way we consider Doug Ramsay's actions... I am very pleased with the conceptual work that Dennis Horn has done in his design , creating the ordered world of Doug's workshop on stage, and suspending the twisted version above, complete with things that are relegated to the attic of our imagination when a disabled child is born... The Robert Latimer case divided the nation, and with Mourning Dove, Emil Sher's stirred up all of those feelings and arguments, but in a way that allows us to watch things unfold over time, and from varying perspectives."

"What would you do? It's just one of the questions facing audience members after watching Theatre and Company's production of Mourning Dove...It is not an easy play to watch for two reasons. We know what is going to happen, but more disturbing is whether we would do the same."