The Best, Most Terrible Date Ever with ‘Red Flags’ (Review)

(This review contains mild spoilers.)

The first time I saw a car on fire on the side of the road, I was on a business trip with a coworker in Los Angeles. We had already spent hours in the car that week, stuck in traffic, grasping at conversational straws. I remember it being a hot and blindingly sunny morning, which is not exactly rare for SoCal. We were on the way to visit a client in the Valley, midday, mid-week, when a seemingly random traffic jam appeared. The cause of the sudden slowdown eventually revealed itself: billowing clouds of charcoal smoke, obscuring a vibrantly colored inferno. Squinting, I looked for the source of the smoke on the highway shoulder — all that was left was a metal frame from what was formerly a sedan. It was an abandoned car, engulfed in flames, with its driver standing, arms folded, a quietly resigned look on his face. All of the passing drivers slowed down to gawk for a moment, and then traffic flowed onward, as if a car on fire by the side of the road was an everyday sight. Situation normal.

Which brings me to… Red Flags. Capital W’s Red Flags is an interactive experience that consists of an extended one-on-one with a performer who plays Emma, your “date” for the evening. And as described in their marketing materials, it is a very immersive, very bad date — with a walking, talking car-fire of a person. Over the course of an hour, Emma (a role originated by actor Lauren Flans and now played by either Heather Ann Gottlieb or Haylee Nichele; my “Emma” was Heather Ann Gottlieb) reveals her insecurities, her troubled dating past, her difficulty making it as a writer in LA, and more.

Half the conversation in Red Flags is scripted, while the other half is improvised in real time in response to the participant’s answers to Emma’s questions, drawing from elements of live-action roleplay. And Emma asks a lot of increasingly invasive questions about what you do for a living, your family, your relationships, if you like living in LA, and more; the interrogation turns existential and deeply personal as the date continues. It turns out that Emma (and Gottlieb for that matter) is from Phoenix, was hurt terribly by an ex-boyfriend, and is currently crashing on a friend’s couch… though I don’t know if she really does have a rescue dog at home. That doesn’t stop me from cooing at the photo Emma shows me: it’s her, holding a truly adorable, fluffy pup. But I also wonder if the photo is staged and whose pet it really is. The lines between reality and fiction blur so much in Red Flags as the two become almost indistinguishable.

Capital W has even cleverly incorporated some of the typical onboarding spiel into the date itself. The usual warnings to “arrive on time” and to “send a text message upon arrival at the venue” fit perfectly into the world of Red Flags. After all, Emma is kind of anal and wants to know exactly when I’ve stepped foot onto Two Bit Circus’ grounds. As she walks me into the venue and orders a drink at the bar, she apologizes for me having to pay for my own drink in a breezy, off-handed sort of way. “I know the bartender but he’ll only give me my drink for free, sorry!” she says, ordering a vodka soda. It’s exactly the sort of thing you’d expect from an Internet-arranged date with a stranger. I order something autumnal-sounding from the happy hour menu and we make small talk as the video and VR games in the arcade mindlessly chime and flash their lights around us.

Shortly thereafter, we make our way to a more private area, removed from the chattering crowd. The meat of the date begins in earnest and warning signs start to appear in a matter of minutes; alarms go off in my head almost instantaneously, even as I attempt to soothe Emma’s worries that she is a bad, unlovable person (while also silently judging her for her actions and the situations she’s placed herself into). The layers of discomfort bloom and expand, unfolding into what can only be described as a corpse flower of a date: that pungent plant that opens only rarely and whose scent is best described as “reminiscent of rotting flesh.” By the time the big reveal comes and Emma reveals her most latest (and questionable) life decision, I think I am ready. So I steel myself for the other shoe to drop… and despite having prepared myself for the worst, I’m still shocked and rendered speechless by what Emma tells me. And there’s no hiding from Emma, not here.

In less capable hands, Emma might come off as any one of a number of vapid stereotypes that TV and film tend to rely upon when placing young, attractive female characters into romantic situations; but, Red Flags is no formulaic cash-grab rom com. The writing and acting is so strong in Red Flags that Emma still feels like a real, nuanced person whose existential terror about dying alone is completely understandable, relatable even. And yet, Emma is someone whose past behavior feels completely repulsive; but she’s simultaneously someone who I feel sorry for and wish to help out. It’s an astonishing tightrope act, one that Capital W pulls off with aplomb. (The script for Red Flags was written by director Lauren Ludwig and created in collaboration with Flans, producer Monica Miklas, and other bad date survivors).

In the end, I’m most reminded of my childhood watching Looney Toons cartoons. There’s one recurring theme in particular: Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. Over and over, Wile E. Coyote is lured off a cliff while failing to catch the elusive Road Runner; however, as Wile E. Coyote continues his pursuit of the Road Runner, he doesn’t realize he’s run straight off the edge of a steep precipice. He continues his sprint mid-air and nothing bad happens, not quite yet. It isn’t until Wile E. Coyote looks down that gravity kicks in. Inevitably, he falls, landing with a satisfying thud at the bottom of the canyon, beaten again. In Red Flags, you’re the coyote; Emma’s the cliff.

Just don’t look down.

Red Flags continues through November 26 at Two Bit Circus. Tickets are $75.

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