Co-Directors Keep Kinship Alive in ‘Porch’ : Stage:Richard Olivier, son of Laurence, and author Donald MacKechnie make common cause.

It’s OK to ask Richard Olivier about his father, the legendary Laurence Olivier. He knows his name evokes curiosity, and he is more than willing to talk about “Larry.” But at the moment, the 28-year-old Olivier’s thoughts are fixed on Donald MacKechnie’s “Meetin’s on the Porch,” which he is co-directing with the author at the Canon Theatre.

“The characters have literally spent their whole lives in Nebraska,” Olivier said of the story. “They’re sort of extraordinary ordinary people: women (played by Susan Clark, Patty Duke and Carrie Snodgress) who have grown and lived through the entire century. The play picks them up at four different points in their lives--not in sequential order. First we see them when they’re 27, just before the Depression. Then in 1917, during the Great War. Then in 1985, in the midst of Reaganomics. And finally in 1945 on V-E Day.”

The British-born MacKechnie chose American subjects over British women partly to distance himself from a too-close subject. “I was trying to write about my mother,” said the first-time playwright, 51, “but I couldn’t get beyond page 20. So taking it out of Scotland--where she’s from--was a way of removing her. Still, (the character of) Amy is mostly my mother; the other two, Haley and Jenny, have bits of her, my two sisters, my former wife . . . .”

Acquainted for more than 20 years (through the elder Olivier, for whom MacKechnie worked as a director at London’s National Theatre), the pair is finding this collaboration smooth sailing.

The dual-directorship was originally dictated by logistics: MacKechnie was to have been working on a film at the start of rehearsals; Olivier has a job that has kept him in Britain since Dec. 28. It has resulted in a mix of styles. While MacKechnie believes in letting his players discover for themselves where to go and how to say their lines before setting the piece, Olivier doesn’t believe in setting the blocking and behavior at all.

“Basically, the premise is that rather than trying to make theater the same as possible every night, and trying to emulate film and television in that way--you should play against that,” he said of the technique, used previously in his stagings of the Actors Gang’s “Out of Sight, Out of Mind” (1983) and Daniel Therriault’s “Battery” (1986). “Because theater is live, it can be different every night.

“I mean, the words are always the same, the characters are the same. Much of it is set. But the physical moves aren’t. The hope is that every night someone comes up with a new idea and does something different--and that changes everything. The audience is able to take the play on its own terms. They’re not having it interpreted for them, having the director say, ‘Thou shalt see the play this way.’ Our job is just to tell the story.”

Once something wonderful is found, though, how does it not become set? “We call it the shared experience police,” he said merrily. “As soon as an actor thinks they’ve found a way, they fight for it, make a space for it, try to get in the same position--and then they’re not telling the story anymore. They’re trying to make a moment, get a laugh. And it’s different from everything else going on onstage.”

The two directors met when Olivier was around 8; MacKechnie has a son the same age, and the families vacationed together. Over time, however, they lost touch. Olivier followed up UCLA theater productions with a trainee directorship at the Northampton Royal Theatre and the Edinburgh Festival, and 2 1/2 years ago married a holistic health consultant; their second child is on the way.

MacKechnie, who founded The Little Theater in Norfolk at age 23, went on to become artistic director of New York’s GeVa Theatre, where he has directed more than 50 plays. One night, hearing that Richard was staging “Out of Sight,” he decided to check it out--prepared to slip out anonymously if it was awful. “But it was a remarkable production,” he said. “Rather anarchic, but organized anarchy. Shortly after that, Richard read (“Meetin’s”) and liked it.”

MacKechnie believes that Olivier brings a mature theatrical and social savvy to the work: “Richard’s worked around huge talent since he was a kid. Any other 28-year old might be intimidated working with (these actresses).”

Or having Lord Laurence Olivier and Joan Plowright as parents?

Olivier believes that choosing directing over acting (“I tried it once, but got terrible stage fright”) will help stave off comparisons to his father. “Even in school, I knew I wanted to direct,” he said resolutely. “Then I didn’t do it for eight years.” During the time away, he looked for other interests outside the family business, but concluded theater was it for him. “Though one day I’d like to direct television, also to write. That’s something Larry really wanted me to do.”

Larry?

He smiled. “When I was 19, going to parties in New York, my mother took me aside and said, ‘Richard, you’re much too big to be calling me Mommy. Would you please call me Joan?’ So I did--and started calling Dad, Larry. In conversation, they were like deities anyway, not like my parents.” Still, the “Son-of-Legend” status chafed: “I ran away from England to get away from that, went to UCLA. For the first year, everyone called me ‘Richard Oliver’--and I was very happy to let them.”

Since then, Olivier has come to terms with bearing the name (in a bid for anonymity, he once considered changing it, “but I’m proud of who my parents are”), including its ability to get him in doors that would otherwise be closed. “I’ve always tried to prepare myself for every job I do. I mean, if when I’d come here at 20, somebody had given me a feature film because of my name, I’d have fallen on my (rear). But now I’m ready.”

And if it takes time, he is willing to hang in there--on all levels. “I saw a magazine that referred to Kirk Douglas as ‘Michael Douglas’ actor-father. Maybe someday I’ll read about ‘Richard Olivier’s actor-father’ . . . .”