Does it matter that Saturday night’s performance of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” at A Noise Within’s brand-new Pasadena space wasn’t fabulous — in fact, was kind of a mangled mess? Well, I really hope not. Because the evening should have been fairy-tale perfect — the first time in the two-decade history of this persevering, talented repertory company that it got to perform on a stage all its own.

A Noise Within spent the previous 19 years as the Rapunzel of L.A. theater — on the verge of adulthood but stuck in a tower. Specifically, that tower was an old Masonic temple in Glendale, charming in its own way but ill-equipped for the demands of an ambitious classical theater company. Co-founders Julia Rodriguez-Elliott and Geoff Elliott had longed dreamed of moving to a permanent home. In 2008, they decided it was time to make that happen, and began a $16-million capital campaign for construction on a new theater. Saturday marked the culmination of that successful effort.

Located in the former Stuart Pharmaceutical building in Pasadena, the new venue is a remarkable improvement over the old tower. There’s parking, wide-open spaces, rushing water, hanging plants and beautiful scenery. The theater itself is twice the size, seating 300. In sum, it seems the perfect place for A Noise Within — if it can live up to it.

I believe — hope — it can, despite such a bizarre first showing. “Twelfth Night,” the story of a brother and sister who each think the other dead after a shipwreck maroons them on different corners of an unfamiliar island, is surely one of Shakespeare’s finest comedies. But it was not right for the occasion. Set in Cuba for no convincing reason, it struck the worst-possible tone for the evening — silly, slapdash, even superficial. Surely that isn’t what A Noise Within wanted to project to the world.

For every well-cast role — Abby Craden as Olivia or Geoff Elliott as the grotesque Malvolio — there’s a terribly miscast one — worst of all, the brisk-mannered, perennially bemused Robertson Dean as the melodramatic, lovesick Orsino. Scene transitions consist of ineptly choreographed booty-shaking — dear God, why? The sets and costumes look as though they were swiped from a middle-school production of “South Pacific.”

Why did A Noise Within, for their 20th anniversary at a brand-new venue, not open with something — well, not this? They began with “Hamlet” nearly two decades ago; wouldn’t it have been thrilling to watch them reprise it in the new venue, but bigger, better and fiercer? Yes, they performed “Hamlet” a few years back, but who cares? New stage, new beginning. Was it a fear of blowing their big night that pushed them to play it safe? Was “Hamlet” too obvious?

Speculation is futile, I guess. Fact is their “Twelfth Night” is a stinker, a shipwreck of its own. Not even a funnier second act can salvage it.

But please, do not think of this as a sign of what’s to come. This is the exception, not the rule, for A Noise Within — a succumbing to nerves or excitement, perhaps, to be expected from so massive a transition. Whatever the excuse, I will gladly accept it this time, and focus only on the positive — that a deserving, committed company has finally found a new home for its (in most other instances) admirable work. Congratulations for that.

Reach Jason here.