Animation.AddClip and Playing the Clip

In the following, I'm attempting to create a Clip and play it. I'm successfully instantiating the animation object (anim). I verified that "openClip" is not null. However, when I execute "anim.Play("openScreen")" for the clip, the clip does not play. I verified the return value, which is TRUE. That is, Unity thinks it played the clip. The model has a single baked animation "Scene", which is from frames 1 through 89. Scene will eventually have other clips.

     private Animation anim;
     private AnimationClip openClip;

     public override void OnStart(PartModule.StartState state)
     {
         anim = part.FindModelAnimators("Scene")[0];
         openClip = new AnimationClip();
         anim.AddClip(openClip, "openScreen", 1, 89, false);
         anim.Play("openScreen");
     }

So:

1) what is incorrect in my method of creating and playing clips in the script?

2) can I attach an AnimationEvent, in a script, to a clip I define in the Unity Editor versus doing it in the compiled script?

Bonus question: How can I play a clip backwards? That is, is this legal: anim.AddClip(closeClip, "closeScreen", 89, 1, false); note that the Start frame is greater than the End frame.

Note: I'm not using the Editor Scripting Tool; I'm compiling in C# as a DLL

I displayed the clip length (openClip.length); it showed a length of 1. However, the clip is really 3 seconds long.