Crow’s Theatre: Rogers v. Rogers. Tailored for the stage by Michael Healey Primarily based on Rogers v. Rogers: The Battle for Management of Canada’s Telecom Empire by Alexandra Posadzki. Directed by Chris Abraham, starring Tom Rooney. Guloien Theatre, December 10, 2025. Continues till January 17, 2026; tickets here.
“It is not going to be boring,” guarantees Tom Rooney within the character of Matthew Boswell, Canada’s Commissioner of Competitors, within the opening monologue of Rogers v. Rogers by playwright Michael Healey.
It’s an apt assertion for the humorous, revealing play that unfolds.
Design
A protracted boardroom desk with a gleaming prime sits centre stage in entrance of a crimson curtain, and crimson lights. A protracted, slender display stretches behind the desk, with photos that change in response to what’s transpiring on stage. That features the whole lot from a a number of windowed Zoom assembly to a park setting for an important assembly to the frumpy wallpaper of Loretta Rogers’ sick room.
Josh Quinlan’s design is an efficient and economical setting for a play that depends on animated storytelling — by Tom Rooney in all of a number of roles — to make its level.
The Story
Because the projection display factors out because the play begins, whereas based mostly on the factual reporting of Alexandra Posadzki’s e book Rogers v. Rogers: The Battle for Management of Canada’s Telecom Empire, the play itself is a piece of fiction. Actually, nobody is aware of the non-public conversations that passed off between events, or their unexpressed ideas on any of the occasions.
However… sure information are in proof.
The play unfolds in a collection of tales, largely informed as monologues to the viewers by Matthew Boswell or Edward Rogers, interspersed with scenes involving different characters who flesh out the situations.
The play begins with Matthew Boswell, who lays out the framework of the story. The Rogers media empire regarded to accumulate Shaw Cable in 2021, and Boswell was against the concept of turning a Canadian telecom trade made up of solely 4 gamers into three. He factors out the best way that company Canada has created an enormous community of firms that many customers imagine signify particular person selections, when the truth is, they’re collected right into a only a few conglomerates who guarantee there’s little competitors.
That’s why Canadians among the many highest charges for cellphone service on this planet.
The opposite main character within the story is Edward Rogers, son of the late Ted Rogers. Shopping for Shaw turned his pet challenge, in addition to a means of creating his mark in an organization the place he had lengthy been sidelined by Ted Rogers himself, who publicly acknowledged, in the direction of the tip of his life when he was trying to make succession plans, that Edward wasn’t prepared to guide the corporate.
Edward’s clandestine behind the scenes machinations play out as he sabotages numerous firm administrators and officers, his personal siblings and even his mom to win out. It contrasts neatly with Boswell’s very public makes an attempt to halt the merger through the regulation.
The foremost downside for Boswell is that not a single firm merger has ever been absolutely blocked in Canadian historical past.
The script is sharp and crammed with zingers that drew laughs from the offered out viewers. In fact, a narrative succeeds due to characters, nevertheless intriguing the concepts and points could also be. Whereas Rooney portrays a dizzying array of characters from former Ontario Premier David Peterson to the household retainer who sorted the Rogers brood and saved the family operating, it’s solely Matthew and Edward who’re absolutely fleshed out.
Edward emerges as a type of pathetic household loser who’s bent on revenge — and will get it after a long time of humiliation. The Rogers clan, let’s simply say, doesn’t come off so nicely. Actually, it offers Edward a traditional villain’s backstory of neglect and emotional abuse.
Boswell is sharply contrasted as somebody with a strong and loving household background and an unerring sense of justice, but additionally a style for a superb battle.
“That is the phantasm of client alternative,” Boswell says as he lays out the company monopoly shell sport. Edward counters by calling the Rogers empire “a homegrown success.”
Characterization works finest throughout the longer monologues. The supporting characters most frequently function fodder for humour. A number of the comedy wrote itself, so to talk, just like the very public Tweets made by Edward’s sister Martha over the past and fateful assembly of the household board.
Tom Rooney
Rooney, a stage and display veteran, is outstanding in all of the roles. He makes use of just a few easy props, just like the jacket that Edward wears versus the shirtsleeved Boswell, or the lengthy glittery earrings he makes use of o painting Edward’s spouse Sarah, and a wide range of methods to delineate between every of them.
As Boswell, he’s each passionate and profane, whereas Edward stutters barely, his actions alternately self effacing and vainglorious. Rooney’s speech patterns change with every character, from the Italian-accented household butler to the Shaw government’s Western drawl.
There are scenes the place he performs two characters in dialogue with one another which can be fast and performed for laughs. In a climactic Zoom assembly, he performs Edward on stage, whereas the projection affords a number of home windows crammed with Melinda, Martha, and Loretta Rogers, Phil Lind, David Peterson, and Bonnie Brooks, every of whom affords their ideas. Rooney’s significantly hilarious as Edward’s chain smoking, harsh spoken mom Loretta.
Remaining Ideas
“Canadians settle for an excessive amount of,” Boswell says at one level.
However, the ending of the story reveals that you would be able to even provoke the complacent Canadian public to a breaking level. Whereas Edward received his want, and each management of the corporate and the Shaw merger, the Canadian public was so outraged by the merger’s simple approval that the Competitors Act (Act) was truly amended through invoice C-59 in 2024 — and in response to the suggestions made by Boswell himself in a potentially career ending (albeit judiciously worded) rant that he posted to the federal government web site. (We’ve this growth to thank for the current Breadgate settlement from George Weston Restricted and its subsidiary Loblaw Firms Ltd., by the best way).
“Hey, have a look at that,” Boswell says close to the tip. “We each gained ugly.”
A rebuke towards company monopolies and greed, a conflict of personalities, and a narrative of generational household dysfunction mix in a totally entertaining efficiency.
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Anya Wassenberg is the Toronto Metropolis Editor at Ludwig Van. Beforehand, she was a contract author with a specialty in tradition and journey for 3 a long time, and a artistic writing teacher for Ontariolearn.
