"It's 1919, and Doc Bell's Miracles and Mirth Medicine Show is on the road, performing variety acts onstage and peddling miracle 'cures' to the gullible. The show's been around for decades, but now it's struggling to stay afloat amid internal discord and dwindling sales. Set against a backdrop of rural poverty and a wave of anti-black violence, Tonic and balm examines the tenuous solidarity and shifting alliances of people on the fringes of society"--Page 4 of cover.