After 50 years as Scrooge, Ira David Wood III prepares for one last ‘Bah humbug!’

In 1974, Ira David Wood III first pulled on a top hat, affixed a false nose and stepped into the sensibly cheap shoes of Ebenezer Scrooge, starting a 50-year theatrical run that would liven up dusty old Dickens with break dancing, Broadway-style showgirls and a gorilla wearing a tutu.

In that time, Wood became so identified with his jazzed-up Scrooge character that he appeared around Raleigh in full costume, contributing the first dollar at holiday fund-raisers with mock reluctance, hollering “Humbug!” to Christmas parade crowds through the sunroof of a black limousine.

So many people saw “A Christmas Carol” at Wood’s Theatre in the Park over the last half-century that a million seems a conservative guess.

‘Aren’t you Ebenezer Scrooge?’

Consider that Wood once took a trip to Beijing, and as he stood in the Forbidden City, gazing at imperial palaces of the Ming Dynasty, a stranger approached to ask, “Aren’t you Ebenezer Scrooge?”

Consider also that he once went to dinner in New York with his daughter Evan Rachel — star of “Westworld” — and her then-husband Jamie Bell — star of “Fantastic Four” — and he got recognized by the gawking diners at a neighboring table.

“The thank-yous come in so many different ways,” Wood said last week, reflecting on his run. “I’ll be standing in line at Harris Teeter, and I look like an explosion in a mattress factory and people say, ‘Aren’t you Ira David Wood?’ ‘No, he’s my evil twin.’ ”

So this Sunday, Wood will play the Scrooge he created for the last time — handing the miser’s nightcap and cane to his son Ira IV, with whom he has long shared the role.

He leaves a show so successful it allowed Theatre in the Park to stage Chekhov plays to 12 people in less festive times — a fact Wood once shared with The New York Times — and that boasts an alumni cast of Michael C. Hall, Frankie Muniz and — of course — Evan Rachel Wood.

But at 77, Wood finds the role of creaky Christmas icon requires considerably less acting.

“I’m hitting that age where I can walk onstage and be Scrooge,” he said. “It’s certainly less makeup.”

Dickens but with some serious liberties

From the beginning, Wood imagined a “Christmas Carol” faithful to the original redemption story but taking serious liberties, starting with the notion that Scrooge would dance and sing.

But more strikingly, his Dickensian drama would come peppered with contemporary gags — often at local politicians’ expense. Gov. Jim Hunt, Sen. Jesse Helms and former N.C. Attorney General Rufus Edmisten all felt Scrooge’s sting.

A more recent Christmas Carol exchange:

Scrooge: But Jacob, you’re dead!

Marley: That’s what they said about Joe Biden.

Wood wanted a Christmas penny-pincher that kids in the audience — and the cast — might appreciate, so he added a Teddy bear to Scrooge’s props. In the same vein, he turned the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come into a befuddled old man, scrapping the Grim Reaper with bony, pointing finger in a child-friendly edit.

But even for an actor who’d written, directed and starred in a show that regularly drew 20,000 people in a season — many of them back for a fourth or fifth viewing — Wood confessed to feeling a chronic pre-show panic.

“Every night,” he said, “thirty seconds before curtain, it’s ‘Oh, man. Am I going to hear crickets tonight?’ Comedy is very different from drama. You know instantly if you’re doing well. You either get laughs or you don’t. For 50 years, thank goodness, we’ve managed to do that.”

Laughs and a few covert bouts of weeping.

Ghosts of Christmas Past

In every show, Wood has the lights go down on Scrooge while Bob Cratchit sings to Tiny Tim, performing a lullaby inspired by Wood’s own glimpse into Christmas Past. The last time Wood saw his father, who died young in 1960, he was a 12-year-old boy getting tucked into bed.

Alone in the dark theater, hearing the words he wrote in painful nostalgia, Wood shares a few moments with his dad’s spirit.

“I wanted it to be the words I never got to hear from my dad,” he said. “I’m pretty lucky in that regard. I’ve been able to do that for 50 years. I do believe that Christmastime, with all its warmth and joy and happiness, is also a very bittersweet time because we tend to think of Christmas Past. The Christmas tree always goes in the same place, and the decorations take the same spot on the mantel because we’re trying to recreate the past that has magnified itself in our lives. And that past includes loved ones who have gone on.

“So without realizing it,” he continued, “there’s a little depression going on.”

Only 20 years into the role, admirers and critics alike were already remarking how Wood could have left Raleigh for Broadway or Hollywood, how he could have followed his partners and cast and taken flashier roles on bigger stages — more frequently, at least. Theories on his choosing not to do so, which have appeared in this publication, run the gamut of speculation.

But as Wood leaves this role, he inhabits the memories of a million people, becoming as much a staple of the holiday as the antique silver polished on Christmas Eve, or the favorite ornament taken carefully from its box of tissues, or the uncle who falls asleep in the La-Z-Boy after two helpings of mashed potatoes, or the Johnny Mathis record that skips in the middle of “Winter Wonderland.”

Or the portrait hanging on the wall behind the dining room table, showing everyone together, and still young.

How to see ‘A Christmas Carol’

Theatre in the Park’s “A Christmas Carol” plays at the Durham Performing Arts Center Wednesday through Sunday, with Ira David Wood III in the Scrooge role Thursday, Saturday and Sunday and his son Ira David Wood IV in the others.

Ticket information is at theatreinthepark.com.