Chicago Tribune - Somewhat Recommended
"...this feels like a play that could have been written about any number of old-school Chicago institutions threatened by the homogenization of so-called progress—Marshall Field’s, say, or anything Swedish in Andersonville. It doesn’t fill an evening of theater just to chronicle and lament their disappearance, sad as that may be. In the theater, we need context, explanation and a lot more drama."
Chicago Sun Times - Recommended
"...Neveu tells a simple story -- one that feels almost like a contemporary Edward Hopper painting. But it is full of psychic devastation. The world moves on and some are left behind. Yet attention must be paid."
Daily Herald - Recommended
"...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."
SouthtownStar - Not Recommended
"...Unfortunately, real life doesn't always make for riveting theater. Sometimes, as in the case of this drama, real life makes for a boring two-hour ordeal. That's because the naturalistic work is a babble fest of talk with little action."
Chicago Reader - Recommended
"...Premiering at the Goodman in a heartbreaking production directed by Dexter Bullard, Gas for Less lets us see the events that create a Lewie, the moments that make a normal life untenable for certain fragile people."
Windy City Times - Not Recommended
"...while there's no question that the everyday banter of regular joes can be rich with profundity, it isn't found here. Watching Brett Neveu's drama is like hanging around a slightly seedy convenience store listening to depressed employees chitchat for two hours."
Chicago Free Press - Highly Recommended
"...This being Neveu, the guys mostly sit around, shooting the shit. That might disappoint theatergoers who value plot above all else, but everyone else should eat up this pitch-perfect show that draws such a complete portrait of its world. The playwright distills the characters’ everyday interactions with his golden knack for dialogue, full of homegrown references and highly amusing exchanges like a debate over Jewel renovations. (The heartbreaking developments come later.)"
EpochTimes - Recommended
"...The characters in this play are of varied cultures unlike the original station and its neighborhood, but we see the changing of a neighborhood and its residents through the eyes of Mr. Neveu's play, directed by Dexter Bullard on the stage of the Goodman Theatre. The cast is strong, in fact, stronger than the script which I found a bit wordy. The story is one that mirrors what is happening throughout our country. This one is very Chicago."
Copley News Service - Somewhat Recommended
"...Gas for Less tries to be an elegy for a vanished world, like “The Last Picture Show.” But the dramatic stakes are too low. What the play represents is not a lost and perhaps happier time but the commonplace failure of an easily replaced gas station."
Time Out Chicago - Recommended
"...the script represents a welcome departure from the Goodman’s airtight programming pipeline in which contemporary economic struggles—the price of gas, let’s say—are all but completely ignored unless they arise in one of the theater’s nonwhite plays. Neveu’s new work is neither flawless nor likely to have ubiquitous Sarah Ruhl–style appeal in other markets after this staging closes. But the freshness of this production and the caliber of work Neveu’s script brings out of this company of artists show us the playwright is touching a nerve that makes his collaborators feel alive."
ChicagoCritic - Highly Recommended
"...This play is about the frustration of letting go of both a store and a comfortable place, neither of which can be saved. “Gas For Less” is Brett Neveu’s best play—it is a truthful work. Rian Jairell and Ernest Perry, Jr. were particularly strong."
