Few playwrights have covered a particular social milieu as exhaustively and effectively as A.R. Gurney. For decades now, he has been steadily producing comedies dealing with the social mores of the WASP set, with often sublime results (The Dining Room, The Cocktail Hour). His latest effort, Black Tie, being given its world premiere by Primary Stages, is a decidedly lesser, more trivial entry in his increasingly growing canon. But thanks to some typically sharp comedic writing and a well-acted production expertly staged by Mark Lamos, it is nonetheless often amusing.

The primary dilemma facing father of the groom Curtis (Gregg Edelman) is the choice of attire for his son’s impending nuptials. He wants to wear the vintage tuxedo passed down by his late father, but the idea seems rather silly since the decidedly casual affair is taking place at a well-worn, rustic hotel in the Adirondacks (perfectly depicted in John Arnone’s detailed set).

Just as he’s trying on the newly tailored duds and nervously contemplating the speech he’s due to give at the rehearsal dinner, who should appear but the dearly departed father himself (Daniel Davis). As Curtis interacts with his exasperated wife Mimi (Carolyn McCormick), his sassy teen-age daughter Elsie (Elvy Yost) and his anxious son Teddy (Ari Brand), his father, unseen and unheard by everyone but Curtis, hovers over the proceedings, offering his own old-fashioned, bemused take on things.

 Although the situations the playwright has devised often border on silliness—for instance, a mini-crisis erupts when the bride’s old boyfriend, now an in-your-face stand-up comic, threatens to hijack the dinner by performing his entire act—the play offers enough incisively observed commentary on the culture clash between the younger and older generations and amusing one-liners to compensate for the hoary plot schematics.

The lead actors play their roles to perfection. Edelman hits just the right notes as the beleaguered father; the perfectly cast McCormick is both elegant and funny as the exasperated wife; and Davis is wonderfully droll as the spectral figure who insists that his son is not donning a tuxedo but rather a “dinner jacket.”

59E. 59 Theaters, 59 E. 59th St. 212-279-4200. www.primarystages.org.