Marianne Shine, Ben Ortega, and Len Shaffer Photo by Rob Nye

The Belrose Theatre is an intimate theatre seating only 45 persons. It was decorated like a miniature opera house and instead of seats the audience sat at tables.

Ideation is an intriguing off-beat play, somewhat on the farcical side. It takes place in a corporate boardroom during "Project Senna" in the near future. The plot centers on a virus that threatens the world population, and the team race to pitch their solutions to an unseen corporate head by conference phone call. Four men and a woman hurl themselves into the task of outlining universal resolutions in a very secret scheme. As the 90-minute drama progresses, mistrust sets in, and they begin to accuse one another of knowing more about the virus. They even suspect the unseen CEO of conducting a test to see how they react under pressure.

Director Queenelle Minet treated the production as a drama in which there were no comical moments. Marianne Shine gave a vibrant performance as Hannah, the head of the team of corporate consultants. Len Shaffer as Ted and Ben Ortega as Brock gave rigorous performances while Heren Patel was pitch perfect as as Sandeep, the social conscious of the group, when he said, "I mean about the camps. I think about ... I've been thinking. I believe in what we are and I understand why there should be a plan, a plan like this. I do. But you know? What if instead it were for brown guys name Mohammed—foreigners or ... people who look like me. People like me." Rounding out the group was Jeremy Judge as Scooter and he gave a vivid performance.

Bottom Line: This Ideation was an interesting production well-acted by the group of five actors.

Ideation closed on March 4th, 2017, at the The Belrose Theatre, 1415 5th Ave, San Rafael, CA. For more information on Marin Onstage, visit http://marinonstage.org.