“Rantoul and Die”: 100% Sweet – UPDATED

"Rantoul" producers Don Foster, left, and Stephen Eich. Photo by Erin Quigley

SWEET
Best of all is the cast, which tears into the material with canine ferocity. Watching them attack the play is energizing and a little bit disconcerting. Their plunge into the abyss is so complete that by the end, you can only fear for their sanity.
David Ng – LA Times

SWEET
Rantoul Illinois is a small town 100 miles south of Chicago that all but disappeared once the Chanute Air Force Base closed. Writer Mark Roberts (Two And A Half Men) chose to put his gritty and edgy play Rantoul And Die in the midst of this desolation where the Diary Queen is one of the ‘in” places because it is one of the only places to hang. I loved this whole production. Some truly funny writing, great direction, and truly extraordinary acting make this four hander one of the year’s true hits.
Robert Machray – Stagehappenings

SWEET
A manically funny, outrageously crude, “trailer trash” treasure! The audience roared with laughter repeatedly, while covering their mouths with shock, as the dysfunctional lives of four of society’s rejects explosively unfold. Written ingeniously by Mark Roberts (co-writer and Executive Producer of TV’s “Two and a Half Men”), from some twisted corner of his psyche… this is an entertainingly quirky play!
Pat Taylor – Tolucan Times

SWEET
Billed as “a Romantic Comedy Wrapped in Razor Wire,” Rantoul and Die tells the funny, heartbreaking story of the break-up of a dysfunctional marriage in the podunk town of Rantoul, Illinois, population: 12,851. Erin Quigley, who has twice been nominated for a costume design Tony, directs the production, and shows a true, unhurried confidence by letting the plot’s cadence unspool of its own accord.
Eric Rosen – EdgeLosAngeles

SWEET
A new play that surpasses its advance billing — “a romantic comedy wrapped in razor wire” — is rare. Mark Robert’s “Rantoul and Die” is such a play, and razor wire is the least of the images this strange comedy takes to heart.
Jay Reiner – Hollywood Reporter

BITTERSWEET
Mark Roberts’ bleak comedy has four great characters and a half-dozen great speeches in search of a point.
Amy Nicholson – LA Weekly

SWEET
Until the laughter dies. Lisa Rothschiller, utterly right as the mousy DQ manager, tells her story in an unsettling, gory monologue that doesn’t belong in the same play, maybe serving as expiation for Roberts’ making us laugh but leaving a sick headache in its wake. Erin Quigley’s direction has a brilliant energy that gets everything together and keeps it there, at a heart-pounding pace—a mixed blessing.
Madeleine Shaner – Backstage

BITTERSWEET
If the producers of “Mama’s Family” commissioned a script from Quentin Tarantino, he’d likely submit something very similar to “Rantoul and Die,” an edgy, grim new comedy from “Two and a Half Men” exec producer Mark Roberts. Sitcomish banter among Midwestern dolt stereotypes is layered with matter-of-fact profanity plus a ghoulish interest in bodily functions and physical brutality. Though impressively mounted, this script seems a couple of drafts short of primetime readiness.
Bob Verini – Variety