Good actors have a way of becoming associated with great roles, and in movies it often happens through just one performance — sometimes with just a few minutes up on the screen.
But despite the variety of his theatrical appearances in a six-decade career, Philip Pleasants has forged much of his reputation through a character he has played for 40 years: Ebenezer Scrooge of Charles Dickens’
This season will be his last appearance in the role, says Pleasants. It is his 10th season performing the role in the Denver Center Theatre Company’s holiday run, which ends Dec. 27.
Not that he is bidding it a “Bah, humbug!” He loves the role and physically inhabits it better with each passing year. Still, he is 78.
“I’m an old man, for God’s sake,” Pleasants said with a laugh on a recent Friday afternoon, just hours before taking the stage in the play’s 2015 debut at the Stage Theatre. “I want to rest before I die.”
He feels age has enhanced his portrayal of the miser who changes his ways.
“When I first started, I had the basic concept of Dickens’ fable, but as the years went on, I enriched it, or it enriched me, I should say more accurately,” he said. “I think one ages in a role like red wine or Scotch whisky.
“It’s an enriching process.”
Pleasants has striking blue eyes and speaks in a rich, plummy voice. It’s the epitome of a certain type of accent associated with the British theater. Think John Gielgud or Laurence Olivier.
But it is an acquired voice, one he crafted for the stage. Pleasants actually hails from Waynesboro, Va., which sits amid the Blue Ridge Mountains in the southern Appalachians.
His interest in the arts was inspired by his mother, a fan of music, drama and literature who worked at the town’s paper. “After we got a radio in the house, she always tuned in to the Metropolitan Opera,” he said.
Pleasants has performed Scrooge across the country. “I first did an adaptation of it in Anchorage, Alaska, of all places,” he said. “They ‘flew’ me into the dream sequence in a harness. It was quite scary, really.”
Pleasants favors this version. The script was adapted by Richard Hellesen, the music created by David de Berry. Bruce K. Sevy is directing the production, with music direction by Greg Coffin.
“The music pulls you into it,” Pleasants said. “The menace is augmented by humor. It’s a very persuasive version. I will miss it, absolutely.”
He has no idea how many times he has performed Scrooge in rehearsals and before audiences. “I’m loathe to count it up really,” he said. “Hundreds of times, I know. Thousands probably.”
So he no longer needs to fine-tune his “Bah, humbug” at the beginning of each run.
“It’s been with me so long it comes naturally, more or less,” he said. “It’s such a joy as you feel the audience being pulled in by the music and the script. It’s rapturous, really. Amazingly, I never tire of it.” (Pleasants also appreciates good acting. He singled out George C. Scott’s Scrooge in a 1984 TV version as a favorite.)
Pleasants’ long career has seen him in a number of Broadway and off-Broadway plays. He was in the original stage production of with Tim Curry in the title role, Ian McKellan as his nemesis, Salieri, and Jane Seymour as Constanze Weber.
The actor is not through with acting.
He will appear in the Stage Theatre’s Feb. 5-28 production of “All the Way,” the Tony-winning play about Lyndon Johnson. Pleasants will portray Richard Russell, the Georgia senator who was a mentor of Johnson but later opposed the president’s support of civil rights.
Still, Pleasants is winding down his theater career.
“If something comes up and the timing is right and it’s a role I want to play, I’ll do it,” he said. “I don’t want to quit the business altogether.”
Charles Dickens is credited with shaping many of the Anglo-American notions of the Yule season. Pleasants appreciates that, though he knows relationships to the season vary among people.
“It’s such a mixed bag,” he said. “There are so many attitudes regarding Christmas. Some adore its sentimentality; others are leery of it. But I feel very sharply the warmth and beauty this season inspires in us.”
William Porter: 303-954-1877, wporter@denverpost.com or @williamporterdp
A Christmas Carol
What: Denver Center Theatre Company’s “A Christmas Carol”
Where: The Stage Theatre, Denver Center Performing Arts Complex
When: Daily through Dec. 27, except Mondays and Christmas Day
Tickets: Prices start at $49. Information at denvercenter.org/shows or 800-641-1222
Advisory: Recommended for ages 6 and up. Stage fog and haze are used. Strobe lighting is used approximately 25 minutes into Act I and 37 minutes into Act II.
