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The gorgeous staging alone is worth the price of admission to “Much Ado About Nothing,” the final production of the season at Cal Shakespeare. The costumes, with a good deal of flamboyant silk, place us in a vaguely but not obtrusively modern Italy (there is one silly joke about a cell phone, however). 

The set features a series of handsome gold and red pillars. Along with a glowing pink railing, these form a perfect background for a dazzling array of white in the two wedding scenes.  

The other great pleasure of this production is the truly inspired comic pair of Ron Campbell and Joan Mankin as the Constable Dogberry and his assistant Verges. Campbell serves up Dogberry’s famous malapropisms with an air of demented triumph. His legs seem to have an equally demented mind of their own, as they prance or bend with hilarious unpredictability. Decked out in fatigues and an antique helmet, Mankin makes the choice of a woman to play Verges look inspired. When the two of them are on stage or even as they leave it, arm in arm, the production comes alive. 

There are other strong performances from L. Peter Callender, who makes Leonato’s pain and rage over the supposed shame of his daughter vivid and disturbing, James Carpenter, who brings out the sadness and latent envy in Don Pedro, and Joaquin Torres, who makes an appealingly vigorous Claudio. I also admired Warren David Keith as Leonato’s brother Antonio and as the friar who comes to Hero’s rescue with some common sense. 

Unfortunately, the Beatrice and Benedick, who should be the emotional and moral center of the play, are less than outstanding. Julie Eccles is an adequate Beatrice, but Charles Shaw Robinson’s Benedick seems bland and baffled. His erotically charged sparring with Beatrice, which ought to provide a grown-up alternative to Claudio’s puppy love for Hero (and to its ugly underside), never catches fire. At moments when we long for a ringing affirmation (even if touched by irony)—“The world must be peopled,” for example—he sounds too much like Mr. Rogers.  

The result is an unbalanced version of the play.  

“Much Ado” is perfect for Indian summer, when there’s still plenty of warmth but the shorter days point toward winter darkness. The play has similar warnings of the darkness in Shakespeare’s later work. The venomous Don John is a warmup for the more effective poison of Iago and Edmund. The fear of sexual betrayal that is expressed but dispelled in “Much Ado” looks ahead to more catastrophic explosions of irrational jealousy in “Othello” and “The Winter’s Tale.” 

Without a convincing portrayal of mature, self-conscious sexuality in Beatrice and Benedick, the play is tilted toward its darker elements. We pay more attention to Don Pedro’s disappointment that he is too old for Hero or Beatrice, to Claudio’s and Don Pedro’s and her own father’s readiness to believe that the virginal Hero is a “stale”—that is, a whore—and to the savage misogyny that goes with such beliefs.  

This is a disappointment but not a disaster. All of these elements are important to Shakespeare’s play and powerfully presented. The production is less moving than it might be with more electricity between its central figures. It could also do with less distracting physical comedy; the sight gags sometimes cover important lines. In spite of these problems, director Peter DuBois gives us an absorbing, hilarious, and visually satisfying evening.