SFist’s stance on deplorable teens is well-documented, so we were naturally intrigued to see a new Macbeth send-up that uses inadequately monitored teenagers as symbols of bloodthirsty ambition. MacBitch, playing through August 19 at the Exit Theatre, is a “Frankenplay” that mashes up the seemingly incompatible genres of a Shakespeare palace-intrigue tragedy and a Mean Girls/Heathers-style teen-girl black comedy. Director Ariel Craft, whose recent work The Awakening made the Chronicle’s Top 10 Theater Picks for 2016, creates an all-woman Macbeth reboot that is manic and gruesome, but still a satisfying stab at combining teen comedy and Shakespearean tragedy.

Unlike Mean Girls and Heathers, MacBitch features adult actors mimicking teenage girls with a “we lived through this” sensibility that is unafraid to go full slapstick. Macbeth’s archetypes are mixed with stereotypical teen movie tropes, and the script shifts gears between plainspoken contemporary dialogue and classic poetic verse. Many of the modern updates to the source material are clever gifts that keep giving, like the three witches’ use of "cootie catcher" paper fortune tellers as black-magic talismans, or John Carpenter-inspired visual tricks employed in scene transitions.

In the Macbeth role of “Maxine,” we have Lauren Hayes, who has done legit Shakespeare before (San Francisco Shakespeare Festival’s Hamlet, 2015) and it really shows. She’s got a technical talent for delivering iambic pentameter credibly to the modern ear, and her comfort with both highbrow and lowbrow elements keeps this curious mashup afloat when it’s not sure which genre to be or not to be. A grisly body count does indeed accumulate in several scenes that are difficult to watch, but Rebecca Hodges (“Seymour”) does some uproarious, heavy comic lifting that takes off much of the edge.

Sketch comedy excess sometimes gets the upper hand in this production, but the hypnotic, almost-constant presence of the three witches onstage keeps MacBitch consistent with Macbeth’s dramatic, psychological roots. These goth witches are mesmerizingly choreographed, and beautiful, horrible monsters you cannot take your eyes off of.

Strict originalist Shakespeare fans may find this zany update to be “not Shakespeare enough.” There are Madonna lyrics interspersed into the Bard’s text. Some of the parody points — like a crude gag on the “washing hands” allegory that I thought was genius — require a certain emotionally arrested, Beavis and Butthead sense of humor to fully enjoy. That won’t appeal to the sensibilities of all Shakespeare people. But if you’re four paragraphs deep into a theatrical review of a teeny-bopper Shakespeare parody, there’s an awfully good chance that MacBitch would appeal to you.

MacBitch’s run coincides with our summer of teen mob attacks on BART, but that’s a Medium thinkpiece for another day. If you’re up for a bawdy but very smart comedic Shakespeare adaptation, the Exit Theatre is the damned spot to be out at for the next two weekends.

MacBitch plays through August 19 at the Exit Theatre. Tickets here.

Chi-Raq - Metreon

Spike Lee's latest adapts the ancient play Lysistrata by Aristophanes and sets it in modern-day Chicago, complete with dialogue that's part rap, part iambic pentameter. As gang war accelerates, girlfriends and wives decide to orchestrate a sex-strike, withholding it from their men until the violence ends. Expect something interesting but uneven, as tends to be the case with most Spike Lee joints.

And please, Mr. Lee, you have to know by now that isn't a peace symbol hanging around your neck, right?

Krampus - Everywhere

As scary as sitting on Santa's lap for a mall photo can be, imagine growing up with the legend of Krampus being trotted out every Christmas. "You better be good, boys and girls, or you won't get any presents!...Oh and also, a hairy, cloven-hoofed monster with horns and a forked tongue will beat you with a pile of sticks, stuff you in a sack, and take you to hell....Merry Christmas!"

While this isn't the first movie to take on the Krampus legend, it's definitely the one with the biggest release, along with a pretty impressive cast, including Toni Collette and Adam Scott. Still, it's only kind of related to the actual legend, so we continue to await the definitive Krampus Christmas Carol.

Macbeth - Clay Theater

Michael Fassbender takes on the Bard, playing the lead in The Scottish Play, while Marion Cotillard tries to get her hands clean in the role of Lady Macbeth.

Janis: Little Girl Blue - Roxie

Documentary about Janis Joplin examines her life using many of her own words through letters she wrote home, most made public for the first time here.

Gremlins - Clay

My top five Christmas movies are (list subject to change based on mood, weather, or time of day):

1. It's a Wonderful Life - Watch it tomorrow night on NBC.
2. A Christmas Story - Watch it all day on Christmas on TBS and TNT.
3. Scrooged - It's on AMC tonight.
4. The Thin Man - TCM will air a festival of Thin Man movies, including the first and best, on New Year's Eve. (After the Thin Man, the second film in the series, is also one of my favorite New Year's Eve movies.)
5. Gremlins - Which you can watch on the big screen at midnight tonight and tomorrow at the Clay!

Here's the first thing you should know about Fort Point after dark: even if you've been sweating like porcine on one of San Francisco's hottest weekends, come nightfall you will still be shrouded in freezing mist, whipped by cyclonic winds and dripped on by condensation from the Golden Gate Bridge towering overhead. Do not, as I did, wear a thin (but cute!) chambray shirt and sandals, but rather take your cues from the better-informed visitors getting jealous stares all evening: fleece gloves, knit hats, and mountain-ready outerwear are a must when attending the theatrical troupe We Players' immersive performance of Macbeth.

I didn't quite realize this when I checked in at the imposing gates of the fort(ress). "Do you have something warmer to wear?" asked the concerned Shakespearean clipboard-holder. "Oh yes!" I lied, panicking. "Do you have to use the bathroom? There are no bathrooms inside the Fort, and we'll be locked in for three hours." "Nope, I'm good" I lied again. And so it was underclothed and over-hydrated that I was herded into the fort and the doors closed ominously behind us.

Luckily, creature discomforts suit this play. After seeing We Players' production, it's almost hard to imagine watching MacBeth's murderous rise and fall from cushy indoor seat. Macbeth is a creepy, tragic play, and here those themes are echoed in every dimly lit corner, freezing stone surface and winding staircase. The setting is the star in this production, which enacts Shakespeare's infamous "Scottish play" throughout the courtyard, passageways and corners of the Civil War-era fort, punctuated by a persistent fog horn and the crashing of waves.

We Players is the company that staged Hamlet on Alcatraz, Twelfth Night at the Hyde Street Pier and The Odyssey on Angel Island, and their use of open spaces is inspired. Don't expect an interactive experience on par with Punchdrunk's Macbethian 'Sleep No More', however: this is much more straightforward theater, albeit creatively staged. The audience is split into two group that are guided by captains around the fort, sometimes watching a scene together, sometimes in separate groups. Watching an intimate, candlelit scene in one of the fort's dark corners while hearing the screams and shouts of a concurrently unfolding scene is one of the production's pleasures

Mackenszie Drae plays a youthful, handsome Macbeth, credibly devolving into wide-eyed paranoia and homicidal mania, and Artistic Director Ava Roy is a hardened Lady Macbeth with whom it's hard to find much sympathy (but why would you want to?). A mustachioed Benjamin Stowe plays Macduff, whose fight with Macbeth takes on cinematic excitement as the two battle against railings, race up stairways and duel with swords and daggers across a fog-swept roof. The Weird Sisters, played by Julie Douglas, Caroline Parsons and Maria Leigh, were wonderfully creepy and their infamous "double, double, toil and trouble" scene was elevated from witchy cliches by truly skincrawling staging.

Another affecting moment was during the banquet scene, where audience members crowd a long table and snack on bread, fruit and cheese. Macbeth, haunted by the bloody ghost of Banquo (played by Nikolas Strubbe), advances down the tabletop, gibbering and raving. As Banquo's ghost hovers at the far end of the table, the foghorn moans and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I forgot all about being cold and needing to pee: at Fort Point, ghosts have never felt more real.

MacBeth at Fort Point
Thursdays-Sundays at 6 p.m., until October 6
Note: We Player's Saturday shows are sold out.

TALK: Controversial House Speaker Nancy Pelosi returns to SF to talk about and sign copies of her latest book Know Your Power: A Message to America’s Daughters. We're pretty sure it's about make-up and diet tips, but you'll have hear her tonight to find out for sure. And with a Whole Food just across the street, it'll be a Democrat's idea of paradise. (Oh, and be on the lookout for a possible Sheehan appearance. Fingers crossed.)

6 p.m. // California Historical Society Museum (678 Mission) // free

THEATER: Mark Jackson directs this highly stylized (i.e., strobe lights will be used) version of Macbeth. (Runs until January 9.)

8 p.m. // Ashby Stage (1901 Ashby Avenue) // pay what you can

So foul and poor a play we haven't seen. At least, not during this San Francisco Opera season. That is, until now: behold, the vile production that is Macbeth.

It's easier to count the things that went right, because there were so few: Thomas Hampson (fan), the Adler fellows, and Raymond Aceto, who all more or less shine. The rest, sadly, was pretty awful. You know you're in for a long night when you're forced to jostle your neighbor two seats over because of her audible snoring. (We wonder if the opera tattler noticed that.) Still, we can't totally fault that sleeping lady for doing what came naturally. We do, however, marvel at how she caught some zzz's, since the sounds heard coming from the stage were rough, and not at all propitious to dreaming.

Let's start with the production: it makes little sense. The stage looks like a bunker. Unlike La Rondine, it did not receive applause as the curtain went up. A giant hole marks the ceiling of the set, as if a comet crashed through. Guards dressed in black space-trooper-chic outfits didn't work, the same goes for the typewriter sitting on the proscenium, unused. There's only one way we can comprehend the mess onstage: director David Pountney and set designer Stefanos Lazaridis are fan of Terry Gilliam's Brazil, where a fly on a typewriter causes a typo, and a guy named Buttle to be arrested instead of Tuttle, by helmet-clad policemen bursting through the ceiling, etcetera, etcetera, and so forth. This explains it all. The typewriter, ultimately responsible for the mix-up, symbolizes guilty consciousness, and governmental oppression. Or something like that.

Pictures of Thomas Hampson and Georgina Lukács by Terrence McCarthy/SF Opera