‘Cadillac’ addresses right, wrong in auto sales lot

Sneaky and underhanded, car salesmen are sometimes characterized as enemies of the consumer who are not to be trusted. The stereotype might assert that any honest car salesman just hasn’t had the temptation to cheat yet – but give him time.

Bloomington Playwrights Project’s production of “Cadillac,” which opens at 8 p.m. Thursday, deals with an “honest” salesman and the decision he makes between the customers and the sales quotas.

Performances of “Cadillac” run through the next three weekends.

Used car dealer Howard Austin, played by Gerard Pauwels, faces a moral challenge when he must decide to sell Fred, played by Thomas Thompson, the car of his dreams – a Cadillac – or to protect his sales record.

“It’s about a man who finally has to choose to do the right thing or the wrong thing, and the tension in the play is, ‘Will he do the right thing?’” Thompson said. “Can you find ethics in a used car lot?”

Director Chad Rabinovitz said the strong script does most of the storytelling on its own, and Pauwels said it is “seamless” playwriting.

“All of the characters are complex,” Pauwels said. “All of them are interesting and believable, and the action between them is believable and everything fits together. It shows the complexity of life in the decisions that they’re making.”

BPP’s performance of “Cadillac” will be the second production of the play. The first occurred at the Chicago Dramatists’ Theater, where the play was written by Bill Jepsen in 2008.

Rabinovitz said that because the play is so new – like all plays produced by BPP – he thinks it will be more accessible to today’s audiences.

“We are one of the few theaters in the country that is focusing on new work, on edgy, contemporary theater,” Rabinovitz said. “A lot of times when people think of theater, they think of Shakespeare. ‘Cadillac’ is about now. This is edgy. It’s intimate. It is talking about things that the younger generation is impacted with.”