Review: LOOKING FOR JUSTICE (IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES) at Bliss - Capital Fringe Festival

The Capital Fringe Festival is in full-swing, and one of the cornerstones of this annual tradition is the exhibition of one-person shows touching on deep, personal topics. Sometimes they’re incredibly profound, sometimes deeply disappointing, but – most often – sometimes they fall somewhere in the middle.

Amy Oppenheimer’s one-woman production, Looking for Justice (in All the Wrong Places) is deeply moving, though the delivery makes it clear she’s less confident of a performer. But that uncertainty is also one of the running themes throughout the production, so it’s also a bit apropos.

In Looking for Justice, Oppenheimer reflects on the pivotal moments of her life that shaped and reshaped how she views the world and her role in it. Now a judge, Oppenheimer has been deeply committed to justice throughout her life – she dropped out of Kent State following the infamous massacre in 1970, and devoted her early 20s to working in political spaces and women’s clinics before returning to law school; after school, she worked for Legal Aid, and later opened a firm dedicated to lesbian feminist issues before working in employment law and eventually becoming an administrative judge. Throughout her journey, she explored her sexuality, women’s rights, and racial tensions, questioning not only the systems and structures in her world, but also the supposed solutions. Despite so many areas of her life offering themselves up as the answers, she repeatedly found herself questioning the concepts of justice itself: what it is, how it manifests, and who gets to decide. At one point, she even muses, “Is there a right choice when there is no good choice?” After all, what really constitutes as “fair” or “just” within an imperfect structure?

Oppenheimer’s ability to explore nuance clearly makes her a good judge, and lends itself to her storytelling too. She’s adamant that there are more than two sides to every story – and even notes that her side, as a spectator in one of the most pivotal cases in her life, is one of many in a complex situation – and she attempts to show this perspective throughout her performance. It’s here that we also see that, while she’s a deep thinker, sometimes stories are so personally driven that they’re hard to relay second- or third-hand. Oppenheimer’s storytelling is fantastic when she’s focused on her perspective – her thoughts, her journey, her inner tensions – but it loses something when she tries to project the perspectives of others. A one-person performance is an incredibly difficult medium to share multiple viewpoints, and sometimes her attempts to recreate scenes grew confusing, mostly because they pulled away from her own tale. It’s not clear if this is from the stylistic attempts to change from her conversational approach when she tells her own story, or artistic choices made by Director David Ford, but the most frustrating part was really that these moments detracted from the effectiveness of an otherwise powerful delivery.

Oppenheimer gives a great performance and a wonderful perspective on some of the core issues that many of us struggle with today, but flails a little when she tries to project onto others. Which, in a way, makes sense – after all, it’s harder to see the other sides of the story beyond your own.

Looking for Justice (in All the Wrong Places) is part of the Capital Fringe Festival, which runs through July 21st; performances of Looking for Justice are only July 12th – 14th.  Details on Looking for Justice and other performances can be found on the Capital Fringe website. Performance run time is approximately 70 minutes. Trigger warnings for detailed discussions about sexual violence, sexism, racism, violence against protestors, and profanity. This show is recommended for adult audiences.

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