Broadway producer David Merrick loved tacking exclamation points onto the titles of his musicals: “Oliver!,” “Carnival!” and “Hello, Dolly!”

A little exclamation goes a long way in implying excitement, passion — a guaranteed greater dose of razzle-dazzle than any other unadorned show.

It’s odd, then, that Scottsdale Desert Stages actress K.K. DuBois — perhaps better known for her work directing prior shows at the theater, such as last season’s lowbrow “La Cage Aux Folles” — plays the namesake character of Dolly Levi in the beloved musical “Hello, Dolly!” with such a mousy demeanor and so slight a singing voice, she and the Desert Stages deserve having the exclamation stripped from the show for the rest of its current run.

Not that we should expect DuBois to channel Carol Channing, the de facto Dolly for Broadway fans. DuBois has a knack for natural line delivery as the matchmaking widow — her character best sums up her role in the musical’s light-hearted confection of comic romance: “Some people paint, some people sew. I meddle,” she says — and yet DuBois’ words never gel into anything resembling a personality. The actress is so benign a presence, she’s almost spectral.

That’s but one of several thudding faults in a musical whose pacing and aimless sense of story make it feel like it’s merely rushing through the muck to get to the songs and dance numbers. Desert Stages and director Gerry Cullity usually know how to take full advantage of the Scottsdale playhouse’s limitations — a modest stage, reliance on prerecorded soundtracks for accompaniment, a wealth of good, young acting talent compared with middling adult actors — but this “Hello, Dolly!” brings out little more than the glaring shortcomings.

Painfully minimal sets and huge ensemble dance numbers, choreographed smoothly by Laurie Cullity, make the stage seem Chiclet-sized. The prerecorded soundtrack and amplified singers (with poor-quality lavalier mics) come from speakers in the rear corners of the playhouse, giving audience members a disorienting, paranoid sense of audio. That’s a shame, considering the show hints at what could be glorious moments — actress Shelley Phetteplace’s delicious turn at the tune “Ribbons Down My Back,” the ensemble “Put On Your Sunday Clothes,” both cheated by the sound system. And don’t even get me started on the use of strobe lights.

It says something that the high point of the show is when Myles Vann emerges during the well-known title tune to take a refrain impersonating a tuxedoed Louis Armstrong, trumpet and hankie in hand, froggy gravel firmly in throat.

If there’s anything to love in this “Hello, Dolly!,” it’s the period costume work of Amy Steging and Lia Hunyady: a grand collection of dapper suits and gorgeous gowns and ladies’ hats snagged from some imaginary store halfway between the Royal Ascot and a black Southern Baptist church. But even then, one wishes young actor Jeff Driskill — as rakish young beau-to-be Cornelius Hackl, looking for all the world like the half-hunky son of Lurch from “The Addams Family” — would have done something more period-appropriate with his near-Beatles mop of hair to fit in better.

Merrick himself knew that using exclamation points willy-nilly in his shows would devalue the gimmick. (It did.)

But worse than that, the exclamation in this Desert Stages production just feels like false advertising.