Past Reviews

Regional Reviews: Minneapolis/St. Paul

Hammer, Anvil and Stirrup
Open Eye Figure Theatre

Also see Arty's review of The Pirates of Penzance


Kevin Kling
Hammer, Anvil and Stirrup, which recently made a return engagement at the Open Eye Theatre, is a program of stories presented by master raconteur Kevin Kling, with cello accompaniments by Michelle Kinney and Jacqueline Ultan. That may sound like a pretty spare show, but Hammer, Anvil and Stirrup is anything but simple. In a deeply moving performance, Kling has us view personal memories through a lens of ancient myths, and draws connecting cords between the human experience and the sounds of the earth, in particular, the power of music to provide uplift and healing.

The hour-long program takes its title from the three bones in the human inner ear that work together to carry sounds from outside ourselves to our brain, where they are given form and meaning. Much of the show addresses the beauty and meaning we derive from sound in general, and music in particular, and more broadly, from our ability to know the world and live our lives through sensory experience.

Following beautiful and haunting opening music composed and performed by Ms. Kinney and Ms. Ultan, Kling launched into the story of the ancient Minoan civilization's demise, attributed to the massive eruption of the volcano Thera, and the Mycenaean civilization rising on its ashes. It is not the history itself, but the message—that greatness leaves us but is followed by new greatness, that our existence is a continuous thread—that seems to stir Kling, and he told each portion of the story with such child-like wonder and rapture, that the audience was mesmerized, drawn into the poetry and power.

Kling took us seamlessly from the citadels of ancient Greece, to his junior high marching band in a Twin Cities suburb, where he prevailed against all odds to remain in the band and the great adventure of a national band competition, performing a medley of the march from the "Hogan's Heroes" TV show, segueing into "MacArthur Park" (which Kling calls the "palate cleanser") and closing with the brassy "25 or 6 to 4" by the rock group Chicago. As he told this funny and heartwarming story, Kling relived every emotion, conveying the importance of each aspect of his experience, along with the transformative role that music and sound have had in his life.

Back and forth Kling took us between the world beyond—tales of the gods Apollo, Hermes and Pan, the mathematician Pythagoras, the nativity story, philosophers Rene Descartes and Isaac Newton, Ojibway Indian legend, and the 1990s Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia in which the power of song threw over the yoke of Communism—and his personal tales of ice fishing, his father, youthful shenanigans on Lake Minnetonka, his recovery from a catastrophic motorcycle accident. Kling's enthusiastic delivery made every segment feel like a gift.

He drew us into a wide array of world views. There was a tenderly recited poem of a boy Tom and the tree in which he lived, the tree transformed into a variety of objects that represent phases of life: a marriage bed, a coffin, and finally, a harp. We learned that Pan, the Greek god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, and rustic music, had the ability to soothe through music but also to incite frenzy, so that the word "panic" comes from Pan. We are told that the Ojibway believe a barking dog signifies the absence of irony. A broad spectrum of sounds connect to a broad range of meanings.

The intimate, narrow Open Eye Figure Theater was an ideal venue for this intensely personal show. The music, most of it original, enhanced each story in tone and depth, and provided interludes between stories. Kling moved among a music stand stage left, a small table stage right, and center stage, with Kinney, Ultan and their cellos behind. There was no other set design and no costumes, though Bill Healey's lighting design did effectively guide us through Kling's meditation and oratory, and Sean Healey's sound design allowed us to hear each of Kling's words with clarity.

Hammer, Anvil and Stirrup may not be for everyone. To fully appreciate the program, one should be able to listen well, to have the agility to follow leaps from the abstract and symbolic, to the minutia of everyday life, and to open oneself to the discovery of personal meaning in Kling's exposition. Those who do would likely find Hammer, Anvil and Stirrup deeply moving, uplifting and affirming. It bears testimony to the power of the senses to move our human experience to a higher plane.

In its recent run, Hammer, Anvil and Stirrup played for only five performances, but it would be well-placed on your watch list for future return engagements. It was produced August 6–9, 2015 by the Open Eye Figure Theater, 506 East 24th Street, Minneapolis, MN. For more information on the company, visit www.openeyetheatre.org.

Writer: Kevin Kling; Director: Michael Sommers; Original Music: Michelle Kinney and Jacqueline Ultan; Additional Music: J. S. Bach, Julies Massenet, and Gabriel Faure; Light Design: Bill Healey; Sound Design: Sean Healey; Stage Manager: Stacy Schultz

Cast: Kevin Kling, Michelle Kinney (cello), Jacqueline Ultan (cello)


Photo: Open Eye Theatre


- Arthur Dorman


Also see the season schedule for the Minneapolis - St. Paul region