Philly Fringe 2026: Cannonball presents Julia Baccellieri’s Strange Root, or the murder of PT Barnum By Joice Heth

This iteration of Strange Root was high on my 2026 list. Last year's version blew me away. Baccellieri brilliantly performed to Maya Angelou's The Mask (a re-working of Paul Laurence Dunbar's 1895 We Wear the Mask), used aerial acrobatics to simulate Black lynching, and did a stirring hoop performance to Childish Gambino's This is America. I love when Black performers use their platforms to address political topographies. When I learned Baccellieri planned on tackling Barnum's racist practices, I was ecstatic.

Barnum’s painful history

While many Americans view Barnum as a benevolent showman, he frequently monetized racial stereotypes. He circulated African American cook William Henry Johnson as a "man-monkey" hybrid. He found Joice Heth in 1835 through an ad in the Philadelphia Inquirer. R.W. Lindsay had purchased her from John S. Bowling of Kentucky and displayed her in Philadelphia’s Masonic Hall. Both Lindsay and Bowling claimed she was George Washington's nurse. Barnum leased Heth for one year while working her 10-12 hours per day until she died. After last year, I was certain Baccellieri would do justice to Heth’s story.

This year’s Strange Root

The strengths in this show are the same as last year: the trapeze performance to Billie Holiday’s Strange Fruit, the Childish Gambino hoop set, and the eerie rendition of Maya Angelou’s The Mask. Baccellieri’s choreography to each individual word, including a deliberately awkward head tilt at Angelou’s “calls me girl” line, were chef’s kiss.

Unfortunately, the newer elements don’t add to the advertised PT Barnum theme, especially the techno bass introduction. While Alston, a beloved clown performer, served as a Vaudevillian palate cleanser between Baccellieri’s emotionally weighted scenes, I felt they could’ve leaned harder into portraying Barnum’s minstrelsy politics.

Based on the title, I expected a show addressing the 19th-century freakery culture and racial stereotypes common to the circus world. The directing team takes too light a touch in tying the individual performances together. In total, only five minutes of the performance actually address the show’s titular characters, Heth and Barnum.

Missed opportunities

The production could have provided a more cohesive narrative by opening with the Joice Heth overview followed by a floor routine using the autopsy shroud as a dance veil. While I would have preferred to see newer material, the show could’ve used Baccellieri’s older pieces to explain the existing 19th-century race culture Barnum took advantage of. If the show marked Alston as the ringmaster at the start, they could have leaned harder into Barnum-style grotesquerie.

I also would have loved a collaborative finale: could Alston and Baccellieri have cleansed the show of Barnum's influences and moved to the future? There are even other Black circus figures this show could’ve addressed, like Sarah Baartman, the Hottentot Venus, and others. As a Philadelphian, I wish the show creators had recognized that Barnum discovered Heth in Philly. The show also suffers because the performers do their own circus setup mid-performance. It’s better to have someone else do it, or redirect the attention with another performer.

Amazingly precise

But Baccellieri is an amazingly precise performer. Their transitions are organic, their flow is graceful, and their lines are strong. While I was disappointed at not seeing newer material, the audience at the performance I attended did not feel that way, giving the cast a standing ovation. So if you haven’t already seen Strange Root, come on out. It’s part of International Black and Indigenous Circus Week.

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