'Gas for Less' is touching story of urban renewal

Customers get more than cheap gas at Art Pelenkovic's Chicago filling station.

They get conversation. They get companionship. Or at least they did until gentrification of the North Side neighborhood began eroding the sense of community Art and his customers had so carefully nurtured over some 50 years.

Playwright Brett Neveu adroitly details that lost sense of communitas in his latest slice-of-life drama "Gas for Less," a poignant examination of a longtime family business buckling under the strain of urban renewal and the effect its demise has on the patrons for whom it became a second home.

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A neighborhood transformed, a mom-and-pop business squeezed by a corporate giant, a way of life gone forever: This story is as familiar as the irascible old-timers and eager upstarts who populate it. And Neveu and director Dexter Bullard tell it truthfully, with obvious affection and touch of reverence for that which progress has erased.

Originally commissioned by Skokie's Northlight Theatre and now in its world premiere at Goodman Theatre, the distinctly Chicago drama unfolds in a fictionalized version of the family-owned gas station that occupied the corner of Lincoln and Berteau avenues for the better part of five decades. Its title comes from the station's iconic "Gas for Less" sign -- reproduced in all its neon glory by designer Tom Burch, whose remarkable re-creation of the cluttered, down-at-heel shop with its cinderblock walls, smudged windows, meager snack supply and faint aroma of burned coffee will ring familiar to anyone who ever stepped inside a mom-and-pop gas station in the era before "convenience centers." Lighting designer Keith Parham also earns kudos for authenticity for his harsh fluorescent interior and for the way his gradually dimming exterior lighting expertly conjures the dull gray of a late December afternoon in the second act.

Robert Breuler, whose every move radiates weariness, plays peevish owner Art Pelenkovic, a Croatian immigrant whose gas station emerged as a haven for locals who converged there on Sundays to watch the Chicago Bears. In fact, the story unfolds against the backdrop of a couple of games from the 2005 season (a metaphor I found somewhat inconsistent). But those onetime regulars are dead or scattered. And now busted gas pumps and rising fuel costs have forced Art (played with a combination of frustration and ambivalence by Breuler) to make a decision. Grandson Anthony (a sincere and somewhat bruised Rian Jairell) wants to try to turn the shop around, and he may have the imagination and energy to do it. Joining them on an October Sunday is Pat (a feisty, funny Ernest Perry Jr.), a loyal customer and longtime crony willing to tolerate Art's outbursts. The exchanges between Breuler and Perry's characters -- contentious friends quick to anger and amiable enemies equally quick to forgive -- play as convincingly as anything in this production. And that's saying something considering every characterization is spot on. That's especially true of Kareem Bandealy as sympathetic fellow gas station owner Bilal Asif. Bandealy's acting is first-rate, and he brings a fundamental decency to the role of Bilal, Art's former protÃÆ#146;Ã#130;circ;©gÃÆ#146;Ã#130;circ;© who sells out to a corporation before it crushes him. Rounding out the cast is Nathan Alan Davis as Benji, whose brief visit to the station reveals a 19-year-old college student whose ambitions lay well outside the neighborhood.

The momentum stalls on occasion. Anthony's reasons for sticking around to work at a failing business are unclear, and the often combative relationship he has with Art doesn't suggest affection's a motivating factor. What's more, his violent outburst and bewildered exhortation near the end of the play feels like overkill. But the talented Neveu has a flair for dialogue, a good sense of story and his characters -- refreshingly free of self-pity -- have a resigned dignity that's well-earned and quite affecting.

"Gas for Less"

3 stars

Location: Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn St., Chicago

Times: 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays to Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays; through June 22. Also 7:30 p.m. June 15.

Running time: About 1 hour, 50 minutes, with intermission

Tickets: $10-$38

Parking: Paid lots nearby

Box office: (312) 443-3800 or goodmantheatre.org

Rating: For adults; contains violence, strong language