From the Time Out review:
"Amateur paleontologist Charles Dawson caused a sensation in Edwardian England with his 1912 discovery of Piltdown Man. It took 40 years for the fossil find to be decisively labeled a fraud, a modern human skull with an orangutan’s jaw. To this day, the perpetrator’s identity remains uncertain. But Steppenwolf ensemble member Simonson has a theory, elaborated in his new play.
Toggling Arcadia-style between 1914 and 1953, Fake, like the fossil, tries to combine two uncomfortably matched pieces. The chronologically earlier scenes detail an investigation into Piltdown by fictional journalist Rebecca Eastman (Arrington) at the behest of Arthur Conan Doyle (Guinan). This plot has the giddy charm of an Agatha Christie drawing-room mystery; in the initial scene, which gathers notables including Dawson (Yando) and the Jesuit paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin (Goss), Doyle all but announces, “I suppose you’re all wondering why I’ve called you here.” Yando invests Dawson with a deliciously villainous formality, while Guinan’s bluff, jovial Doyle conceals a steely mind, Holmes and Watson in one.
If that were the whole of Fake, we’d have a briskly paced intellectual puzzle play, occasionally interrupted by Simonson’s fondness for dumping his research into fact-filled speeches. But the play flags in its modern half, in which three scientists form an uninspired love triangle. Still, the doubled roles offer the remarkable cast a chance to show off; Guinan, in particular, shifts brilliantly between Doyle and the more cerebral Jonathan, uncovering hidden layers in each."
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