Sulfur Bottom

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Rishi Varma’s Sulfur Bottom has its heart in the right place but its complicated and confused storytelling makes this new play difficult to follow. An ecological parable, it has crashing symbols, flashbacks, unexplained appearances and events, and characters suddenly aging without any warning or change of makeup. While Megumi Nakamura’s direction assists with the straightforward characterizations, she has not helped with staging at the tiny Jerry Orbach Theater or keeping the plot coherent.

Part of the problem with the play is that it attempts to cover too many topics in the form of a domestic tragedy: pollution, industrial waste, climate change, toxic chemicals, poverty, red-lining, foreclosures, destruction of animals, etc. It also cannot make up its mind whether its style is realism, surrealism, expressionism, symbolism or even magic realism. Many of the elements seem extraneous, tangential or not fully unified to the plot such as the talking animals. There is an interesting play hiding in this material but the playwright does not seem to know how to shape his ideas and wants to cover everything in this one play.

The play which covers 40 years is set in an unidentified industrial park on which workers live but pollution is causing illnesses. When we first meet this African American family, Fran has been attacked by a deer while her father self-named Sir Cavin is tending to both her and the deer, as his wife is slowly dying off stage. His sister Melissa who lives with them in the family home inherited from their parents insists that they sell the house which they cannot afford to fix up or deal with the toxic chemicals in the soil.

In the second scene, Fran now in her 30s is married to Winter and they have a child Maeve. The house is under water and is inundated by sewage. Unexplainably, a whale is on the floor of their living room. Both Sir Cavin and his wife have died. Now it is Fran who thinks they should sell the house but Melissa thinks it is better to keep it than be homeless. A fire starts and we see the cause.

The third scene is a flashback to when Sir Cavin was in his 20s and Fran is still a baby. He is visited by Copal, an ambitious friend and neighbor who now is a young politician working for the city. He has a petition he wants Sir Cavin to sign to use the land for storing hazardous waste as it has the mineral composition to support it. He believes that the land may be worth millions at some time in the future. Not only is Copal naïve, he seems to be someone not to be trusted.

Young Melissa planning to leave for San Francisco doesn’t care much about the house or the environment. Returning to the present, the older Melissa sees the fire and insists that Fran leave while she initially saves the baby. The final scene takes place 20 years later with Maeve now a young woman. However, she wants answers about the fire and information about what happened to her mother and aunt. Both Maeve and her father Winter work at the local plant. Returning to what was once her family’s home and land, Maeve has a dream in which she meets her mother, her aunt and her grandfather. Maeve is also on the track of the wild animals who are terrorizing the community.

At least halfway through, Varma seems to forget that his initial theme was pollution and toxic waste and its effect on human life. The animals both living and dead seem to be a side story as is Maeve’s as is attempt to learn her family story. The fact that the animals talk is never explained or made part of the storyline. The flashbacks only complicate what is already a convoluted plot without adding anything to the play.

Nakamura’s direction is made more difficult by the small stage and Daniel Prosky’s set design. Not only does the set not depict the shabbiness or the water, the stage is too low for most of the audience to see either of the animals played by Winter (the Deer) or Sir Cavin (the Whale) who wear no special costumes. There is no evidence of the fire in the later scenes so all this must be imagined or taken on faith. The furniture is in the way of Nakamura’s blocking so that much of it is awkward and ungainly.

While the script does not suggest that the actors age, there is nothing to initially let us know that at least ten years have passed between scenes. The cast made up of Kendyl Grace Davis as Fran, Kevin Richard Best as Sir Cavin, Joyah Dominque as Melissa, Eric Easter as Winter, Feyisola Soetan as Meave and Aaron Dorelien (subbing for Isaiah Joseph as Copal) are all impassioned but show no sense of growth or time passing as the scenes morph one into the other. Dominique is most fiery, while Dorelien is successful at Copal’s innocence and materialism.

Rishi Varma’s Sulfur Bottom (the title is never explained or referred to, presumably a metaphor) has an important theme on a topic rarely depicted on our stages. However, in this form, the play is neither coherent nor convincing as an ecological polemic. The actors do the best they can with fixed characters who remain true to their beliefs throughout but don’t change much. A more elaborate production is probably needed for all of the surrealistic as well as realistic touches not shown on the stage here. The many symbols seem lost without the proper design elements  to elaborate them.

Sulfur Bottom (playing Wednesdays and Saturdays, through October 11, 2025)

Wiskie and Rye Presents

The Jerry Orbach Theater at The Theater Center, 210 W. 50^th Street, in Manhattan

For tickets, visit http://www.sulfurbottom.com

Running time: one hour and 30 minutes without an intermission