About the Show

A sweeping family drama spanning 40 years, confronting environmental injustice with wit.

Spanning four decades, Sulfur Bottom follows a family living in a small town transformed by the arrival of new factories. Promising jobs and prosperity, the plants instead bring chemical leaks and toxic dangers that ripple across generations. At the center is a young woman navigating impossible choices to safeguard her family while confronting the widening costs of environmental neglect.

Written by Rishi Varma, the play examines the long-term effects of industrial expansion, exploring themes of resilience, responsibility, and community survival. With touches of surrealism—including the appearance of talking animals—it blends realism with allegory to reflect on the human and ecological toll of environmental injustice.

By tracing one family’s struggle over forty years, Sulfur Bottom captures both the personal and collective dimensions of living in the shadow of industrial harm.

Critic Reviews (5)

“Sulfur Bottom feels like it needs more development to reach its full potential, but Varma’s message is still powerful.”
Read more

“In its ever-twisting form, Sulfur Bottom succeeds in unsettling expectations in a series of unpredictable scenes. But Varma’s complicated storytelling doesn’t serve the play’s mission to call attention to environmental injustice.”
Read more

"cannot make up its mind whether its style is realism, surrealism, expressionism, symbolism "
Read more

“We certainly do get it here in a tight ensemble of characters co-mingling through relationships and grief transcending space and time.”
Read more

Making his Off-Broadway debut with Sulfur Bottom, the playwright—a 2022 college grad—may not yet have the skill set for a compelling environment-themed allegory.
Read more