Kunstler. White Bear Theatre.

“I’m aware I’ve offended people” says the eponymous protagonist William Kunstler in an uncharacteristic moment of reflective understatement. There is a life-size doll of the American lawyer and radical activist hanging by a noose from a university lectern. A placard with the word “traitor” is pinned to its chest. Outside a riled-up crowd is demanding an entire cohort of Ivy League law students boycott the autobiographical seminar that he is about to deliver. So yes, the man has offended people. Jeffrey Sweet’s two-hander bioplay Kunstler, set in 1995 and first seen in 2014 at the New York fringe festival, makes a solid fist of explaining why.

Modern UK audiences may well be most familiar with William Kunstler from Aaron Sorkin’s Oscar-nominated 2020 film The Trial of the Chicago 7, in which he is portrayed in quasi-heroic terms by an exasperated, behatted Mark Rylance. The New York Times once labelled the man “the country’s most controversial and, perhaps, its best-known lawyer”, which indicates the position Kunstler holds in the pantheon of that nation’s 1960s and 70s progressive civil rights heroes. “Concerned parlour liberals” adore the man whose chief concern is “putting the law itself on trial”.  Those on the right demand his disbarment. An irate federal judge sentences him to four years in jail for contempt of court. Even radical colleagues see him as a polarising publicity-seeking renegade.

Director Meagen Fay gives us Kunstler’s “greatest hits”: heavy on his laudable civil rights triumphs but light on his work for New York’s brutal Gambino crime family. In other hands Sweet’s exposition heavy narrative (his protagonist spends much of the time reading out transcripts from courtroom run-ins with judges) might pall. Two tremendous performances ensure Kunstler stands out as a cut above the standard bioplay.

Firstly, there is Jeff McCarthy’s extraordinary, larger-than-life turn as the raspy voiced “unrepentant oddball” attorney. McCarthy, who is the spitting image of comedy icon Will Ferrell (and has his comic timing), plays Kunstler with the passion, fervour, and expansive hand gestures of an evangelical priest. The man is a New York Jewish whirlwind that is slowly but surely running out of puff. He mimics politicians, cracks lawyer jokes, bursts into song, and quotes lines from Julius Ceasar. But he is failing too – by 1995 the man is literally and metaphorically out of his time. He limps, his memory is going, his frequently loses his train of thought, and he does not really get what drives the apolitical young law students who pitch up for his seminar.

Then there is the patiently questioning form of black seminar leader Kerry. Nykila Norman’s understated performance is the perfect foil for McCarthy’s exuberance. Kunstler’s every mention of African American clients sees him offer a nod in her direction, as if she is somehow an official representative of her colour. The character does not flinch but anticipate fireworks when it is her turn to ask the questions.

Writer: Jeffrey Sweet

Director: Meagen Fay