Michael Healey’s Rogers v. Rogers directed by Chris Abraham opened at Crow’s Theatre on Wednesday night.  It’s a sort of follow up to The Master Plan in that it’s Toronto based and deals with corporate greed and incompetence coupled to governmental ineptitude and general inability to keep up with the corporate world.  It’s different in that it’s two related stories mashed together and, more notably, in that Tom Rooney plays all the characters.

It’s set in the aftermath of Ted Rodgers’ death.  Edward Rodgers is scheming to gain effective control of the company despite the skepticism (at best) of his siblings and most of his late fathers’ cronies on the board.  At the same time Rogers; Canada’s, second largest telecom, is trying to take over Shaw, the fourt largest in a move that would have alarm bells ringing in any country that actually cared about the vitality of its business sector.

The first character we meet is Canada’s Competition Commissioner.  He’s a fish out of water in that he’s an Ottawa bureaucrat who actually cares about what he is doing and isn’t just going through the motions of opposing the merger.  He’s intense, sweary and on the verge of a breakdown.

Then there’s Edward Rogers.  Basically he’s a rather dim, food obsessed, completely amoral failure who is trying desperately to impress his dead father.  His overriding ambition is to hold the CEO title regardless of any collateral damage in the process or whether he has any ideas about how to take the company forward..

Meanwhile his sisters and mother; who are also members of a family trust that ultimately controls the company, just want a competent CEO installed so that they can get on with being extremely rich without too many distractions.  In this they are largely supported by the other directors notably Liberal hack David Peterson.

There are so many fuck ups along the way.  Edward’s Bay Street charm offensive backfires largely because he doesn’t have any.  The stooge who he is trying to install as CEO gets a call from the actual CEO in mid plot and thinking he’s refused the call puts his phone in his pocket thus allowing the CEO to listen in on the whole plot.  Edward tries to spring a surprise coup dethroning the CEO at a hastily called board meeting which is held over Zoom because of the pandemic.  All the things that can go wrong in a Zoom meeting attended by elderly technophobes (and Rogers technology) do go wrong.  The plot collapses.  The sisters sue and eventually are paid off by Edward.  Finally he’s CEO though at the cost of massive reputational damage to the company, significant revenue loss and a drop in the share price.

And despite all the evidence and an outpouring of public indignation the Shaw takeover goes through.  Of course it does.  No Liberal government is going to disturb one of the cosy oligopolies that dominate the remnants of the Canadian economy that aren’t foreign owned.

The story is a bit gut wrenching but the script, the staging and Rooney’s performance combine to produce a satire that’s as laugh out loud funny as it is depressing.  Rooney manages his body language and verbal delivery coupled with just a few props; Edward always wears a jacket with a red pocket square.  When he’s talking to his wife she has earrings, he doesn’t so wearing one earring allows a 180 degree turn to indicate a change of character.  Coffee cup and sirt sleeves indicate the Competition Commissioner and so on.  And, of course there’s a subtly different accent/dialect for each character.

There’s a bit of backstory about the Rogers family narrated in the character of some sort of eastern European butler/valet who is the nearest thing to a parent the Rogers kids have.  The poor man can’t even tempt the food obsessed Edward away from the door (where he waits expectantly with the dogs for Ted’s return) with brussels sprouts fried in duck fat.

The Zoom meeting which is really the climax of the whole thing is brilliantly done.  The whole of the back of the stage functions as Edward’s screen with subtly different Rooneys displayed in each “cell”. The futzing around is hilarious especially when one of the sisters starts tweeting about what a slimeball her brother is.  The elderly mother reads out the mendacious statement that Edward has prepared for her but she’s on mute and doesn’t realise it and when she finally twigs that she’s been had by Edward she goes berserk.  And then she dies. The whole mess almost makes one feel sorry for Ted Rogers (almost).

So like The Master Plan it’s a sharp satire on the shortcomings of Canadian politics and business.  Maybe events as described aren’t 100% accurate but they are funny and true enough in essence.  It’s fast paced cleverly designed and brilliantly acted.  Well worth seeing.

Rogers v. Rogers plays at Crow’s Theatre until January 17th.

Photo credits: Dahlia Katz