As a theatre critic it’s important to not decide on a work before you see it. But while “don’t judge a book by its cover” remains a virtuous aim, theatre critics have not only the cover to judge, but also years of theatregoing to frame our opinions as we take our seats.

And so here’s my admission: I don’t like Macbeth. And yet just like Banquo’s ghost the play continues to reappear, finding its way back into my life.

I saw it again this week, for the eighth time in seven years, at the State Theatre Company of South Australia. Macbeth visits Australia a lot: the STCSA production comes quick on the heels of Melbourne Theatre Company’s production in June. Australian film-maker Justin Kurzel’s version hit cinema screens in 2015; Brisbane saw it in 2015 care of Opera Queensland, and again in 2014 thanks to Queensland Theatre Company – the same year it was also staged by Sydney Theatre Company. And this is all to say nothing of the productions by smaller companies, by students and on the fringe.

According to AusStage, a database of Australian theatre, Macbeth is the most performed Shakespearian play in Australia, beating Romeo and Juliet by some measure.

All of this is to say: if I’m going to spend my time working as a theatre critic, I am going to have to spend a lot of it with Macbeth.

My problem, of course, rests largely with a series of unfortunate productions and their shared composition of fake stage blood, dissonance electronic scores, industrial designs, dirty T-shirts. But it’s also about Shakespeare’s text itself: his unrelenting exploration of masculinity with women shoved off to the side (I’ve yet to see a production convincingly argue that Lady Macbeth is indeed an interesting role for women), and the irrelevance of a story about royal lineage and power from a country on the other side of the world.

My first Macbeth in 2010, from the Sydney Theatre Company and independent Adelaide outfit The Border Project, started things so well. Playing off the reportedly cursed nature of the play, the production, Vs Macbeth, irreverently played with the script, adding in a litany of errors to the work. Everything that went wrong in the rehearsal room – supposedly – made its way to the stage, and some added homage to the curse besides.

Sets caught on fire, the fake dagger was swapped for a real one, the wheels on rolling sets weren’t locked and actors went careening across the stage. Instead of blood we had yellow paint balls; instead of darkness there was laughter. It was less about Macbeth and more about making Macbeth; less about Shakespeare and more about the notion of young artists playing with theatre and performance itself.

Since then, it’s been downhill in Dunsinane. There was Macbeth set in a jail where the witches gathered around a toilet; the Macbeth where I excitedly thought “out damned spot!” would be told via contemporary dance, before I realised we’d just been victim to an incongruous sound cue; the production where the stage blood just made it look like everyone had their period.

My one other bright moment was a musical version performed by teenagers – turns out there is little in Shakespeare that can’t be improved by making it shorter and adding children dancing like their lives depend on it.

The play itself is too bleak, too unrelenting. While Macbeth and Lady Macbeth have the potential to be compelling antiheroes, too often I’ve seen actors drown under the weight of their characters. There is no one to root for, but there is little to root against, and the play just gets subsumed in a not particularly interesting form of misery. The latest production, unfortunately, has done little to change my mind.

It reminded me, too, that there is little in the way of a narrative arc – just a steadily growing pile of bodies. Perhaps this is useful: in the absence of any dramatic differentiation, you can measure how much longer you have to sit there quite neatly by counting how many people are left to be killed.

And yet however much I scorn Macbeth, I’ll keep going back.

The reason we are theatre critics is not because we think all performance is great, but because we believe in the steadfast capacity for theatre to be transcendental. Even when seeing hundreds of shows a year, it would be folly to think these experiences might come around more than a handful of times in a lifetime – but every show could be the next one. And if it is, we want everyone to know.

Am I ever going to have that experience with Macbeth? I doubt it. But despite my cynicism about criticism, the act of being a critic is forever an act of hope. Outside the theatre I can dislike Macbeth as much as I like, but as soon as I step inside a theatre as a critic I have to believe that this will be the one. No matter how many times Shakespeare seems intent on proving me wrong.

• Macbeth runs at the State Theatre Company of South Australia in Adelaide until 16 September