Nothing like ethnic for that warm family feeling, where the generations squabble and the changes wrench, right up to the group hug of togetherness at the finale. The Jews, the Irish, he Italians and the Blacks have long dominated the field but Latinos, Asians and even East Indians are making gains.

Actually, any large and reasonably lasting family will do. The laughter and the tears are universal. Playwright Tom Dudzick, for example, does quite well with people of Polish extraction (Some of his characters call themselves “Polaks.” Just saying.) He’s milked his own early years in Buffalo for a trilogy of warm and fuzzy ethnocomedies built around a Pazinski family.

I missed the first round of Pazinskis when the North Coast Repertory Theatre presented “Over the Tavern” in June, 2009. But I’ve caught up with them now, via a slice of their lives in July, 1969, just as Neil Armstrong is about to step onto the surface of the moon. Dudzick’s “King O’ the Moon” will run at Solana Beach playhouse through May 8.

It’s a show without many highs or lows but plenty of above-average acting jobs and a certain comfortable geniality unlikely to displease. I didn’t feel plucked back to that historic moment. And none of these people hold much interest for me. But director Matt Thompson has managed to make them all plausible enough, even in their unlikely moments.

The Pazinski siblings are a ragtag quartet. Kevin Koppman-Gue is a seminarian who doesn’t believe in Hell, actually, and Kyrsten Hafso is the sister who increasingly doesn’t believe in much of anything, certainly not her marriage. Ross Hellwig struggles to make sense of the dense soldier brother who leaves for Vietnam tomorrow. All three fail to stabilize their characters amidst the mood shifts and minor revelations. Only Julian Conrad squarely nails his assignment, making the retarded younger brother an irresistibly child-like delight.

It’s always a pleasure to see Candice Chappell at work, this time inhabiting a strong, loving, irreplaceable mother, but John Herzog goes for the easy, obvious stereotypes as her mature suitor. Sunny Smith is a dash of bracing spice as the soldier’s pregnant Irish wife, a randy, cheerful upbeat who may herself run the family when we meet them next.

Dudzick’s style is something like comedy sketch writing with often gratuitous oddities tossed in for texture. “Sunday morning? Everybody’s in church or in jail.” “Did you go to confession? Then keep your mouth shut.” And who knew tear-gas is particularly hard to shampoo away? Or that Philco built toy trains? (Maybe everybody else but not me.)

In his attempt to crunch a two-story set under the NCR’s low ceiling, crafty set maven Marty Burnett has cut on jagged line and slid everything a bit off, as in an earthquake’s aftermath. The Valerie Henderson costumes are drab but probably accurate in a “so what?” fashion. (I hope she wasn’t responsible for Hafso’s clumsy wig, but somebody is.) Matt Novotny manages the lighting reasonably well but flunks the moon effect totally.

Since the on-going drama of the moon landing stretches through the whole show, Chris Luessmann’s sound design sometimes nearly takes over as the methodical transmissions build up to “Eagle has landed,” but that’s no problem with such a low-pressure show. Likewise, the mix of period pop music works well except for the very top of the show when the opening strains of “Aquarius” made me suddenly hope I was about to see “Hair.”

Now I’m stuck wanting to see “Hair”!

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