On their wedding anniversary, the actors Kathryn Grody and Mandy Patinkin arrive late for a dinner reservation; although they made it two months earlier, the maitre d’ has already given their table away. “Let’s not make a scene; let’s just go somewhere else,” Kathryn says to Mandy, knowing her husband.
In this pivotal scene in “Seasoned” Mandy ignores his wife, sidling up to the restaurant employee who has turned them away.
“Princess Bride,” he says to the woman.
“What’s that?”
“‘You killed my father. Prepare to die,’” he recites the best-known line in the film by his character, the skilled swordsman Inigo Montoya.
The maitre d’ looks at him blankly.
“Homeland,” Mandy tries again
“What?”
“It’s a TV show. Have you seen it?”
“No.”
“Seasoned” is one of the four “indie episodics” presented together at the Tribeca Festival’s NOW Showcase, which has one more showing on Sunday. “Indie episodics” is film festival lingo, more or less, for TV pilot. “Seasoned” is the one I’d most like to see turned into a series.
I’ll concede the possibility of a theater lover’s bias. Although he only name drops his screen roles to get the restaurant reservation back, Patinkin is a 14-time Broadway veteran and Tony winner for portraying Che in Evita. Kathryn Grody is also a Broadway veteran, including for her solo show “A Mom’s Life.” Those of us who saw them serve together as hosts to the 2023 Drama Desk Awards should have realized then and there that a Mandy and Kathryn Show for a wider public was inevitable.
We first see them in “Seasoned” attending an Off-Broadway play, and while they look baffled and bored, they visit backstage afterwards, where Kathryn is popular among the theater crowd and Mandy feels left out ( we hear through his perspective everybody saying “blah blah blah” to each other.)
Their backstage visit is the reason why they are late for the reservation. In the remaining twenty minutes or so, the couple futilely try restaurant after restaurant, wandering the dark streets of the Village, eventually reduced to chasing after a food truck, to no avail. If there is a kind of Curb Your Enthusiasm vibe to the missteps and mishaps of these real-life characters played by themselves, there is something much sweeter in the mix: Along the way, they do often bicker, but they also hug or dance in the streets, and near the end of the evening even stumble upon what is evidently a much better show than the one that began the evening, this one by street performers.
“Seasoned” is co-created by Gideon Grody-Patinkin, one of their two sons, who have cameos live-streaming a song for their anniversary to their smartphone, which of course they can’t figure out how to watch.
The three other episodics in the showcase are each seeded with Broadway veterans, as it happens, and each aims for a comic tone, but the implausible premises make the comedy feel more strained.
“Bulldozer” stars Joanna Leeds, its creator, as a woman whose boyfriend cheats on her, which sets off a chaotic chain of self-defeating reactions and unfortunate incidents, including involuntarily psychiatric institutionalizing and false medical diagnoses..
“Earth to Perry” is created by Jeremy Beiler, an astronaut in space who learns he is the only one not invited to celebrate in Maui once the mission is completed. The one-note sketch has a starry cast, including Amy Schumer, Josh Charles, Wyatt Cenac and Maya Rudolph, and some impressive visuals of weightlessness.
“Mother, May I Have A Kidney?” created by Veronica Reyes-How, stars Doug Plaut as a sickly child who grows up to be an adult who needs a kidney; the best match is his mother. But he has been estranged from her for a decade. I think we’re supposed to understand that she’s monstrous. But Doug has also been estranged for a decade from his sister. Presumably this will be explained in later episodes.
