Unsuccessful at tragedy, Mountfort moved to surer ground, and if tragedy did not sell on the market of the 1680's, farce was surefire. Mountfort's The Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, Made into a Farce ... with the Humours of Harlequin and Scaramouche, is a most interesting example of Restoration farce. The Queen's Theater in Dorset Garden was well-fitted for stage spectacle and effect, and Mountfort took advantage of his knowledge of the stage and the contemporary audience to produce an amusing and popular hit. The play was revived in 1697, five years after Mountfort's death, and again in 1724, at a time when, as Borgman tells us (p. 39), The Injured Lovers had been long forgotten.
Mountfort continued his acting career with great success; he was one of twenty-two men and six women who, on 12 January 1688, were given the position of "Comoedians in Ordinary" to King James, and he acted in a variety of plays, including Shadwell's The Squire of Alsatia, in May, 1688, and Bury Fair, in April, 1689. In Dryden's Don Sebastian, produced in December, 1689, he played the young and noble Don Antonio, described as "the wittiest Woman's toy in Portugal." Although Mountfort was best known for comic roles, he scored a success as Alexander in Nathaniel Lee's The Rival Queens, January, 1690. Cibber says of his Alexander:
In Tragedy he was the most affecting Lover within my Memory. His Addresses had a resistless Recommendation from the very Tone of his Voice ... All this he particularly verify'd in that Scene of Alexander, where the Heroe throws himself at the Feet of Statira for Pardon of his past Infidelities. There we saw the Great, the Tender, the Penitent, the Despairing, the Transported, and the Amiable, in the highest Perfection (Apology, pp. 74-75).
Mountfort's third play was acted in January, 1690, although it may have been produced as early as December of the previous year. The Successful Strangers, a tragi-comedy, was based on a novel by Scarron, The Rival Brothers. In his Preface, Mountfort confesses, "I am no Scholar, which renders me incapable of stealing from Greek and Latin Authors, as the better Learned have done". The play was a success; its combination of comedy and tragedy appealed to the town, and it was revived several times in the early eighteenth century.
As Borgman notes (p. 80), Mountfort's acting career peaked in the season of 1690-1691, when he acted nine new roles, eight of which were leads. He also prepared a comedy of his own, Greenwich Park, and assisted in the writing or preparation of three other plays. He assisted Settle with Distress'd Innocence, and his name is linked with two plays by John Bancroft, Edward III and Henry the Second, although his contribution here, if any, is uncertain. The publishers of the collected plays of 1720 note that "we have annex'd, King Edward the Third, and Henry the Second; which tho' not wholly composed by him, it is presum'd he had, at least, a Share in fitting them for the Stage, otherwise it cannot be supposed he would have taken the Liberty of Writing Dedications to them." Borgman says of these plays that Mountfort "doubtless scanned the script with a critical eye and made such changes as would seem necessary to an experienced man of the theater" (p. 90).
In Greenwich Park, Mountfort scored his greatest success. The comedy is a hilarious mixture of the comedy of manners, humours, and farce. The prologue sounds the dominant motif of the play, that of satiric and energetic sex-intrigue: "At Greenwich lies the Scene, where many a Lass / Has bin Green-gown'd upon the tender Grass." The play hits wittily at fortune-hunters, cits, and old fellows who attempt to ignore their age. There is heavy reference to the contemporary London scene. The comedy was produced in April, 1691, with great success; Gildon says of it: "a very pretty Comedy, and has been always received with general Applause" (Lives and Characters, p. 102). The gay and witty Florella was played by Mrs. Mountfort—who played a part very much like that in which she was so successful previously, Sir Anthony Love. Mrs. Barry played the passionate Dorinda, a promiscuous and mercenary woman who, at one point in the play, cries out in the best tradition of sentimental comedy: "Oh what a Curse 'tis, when for filthy Gain / We affect a Pleasure in a real Pain." Sir Thomas Reveller, the heavy but comic father, was played by Leigh; Nokes and Underhill played comic cits, and Mountfort himself played opposite his wife as Young Reveller. The play was revived repeatedly, and remains a delightful work.
Mountfort's best part of his last year came in December, 1691, when he played the hilarious lout, Mr. Friendall, of Southerne's The Wives' Excuse. The play is good comedy, but quite serious, as Southerne focuses on the distress of an intelligent, sensitive woman, saddled with a foolish husband who is the perfect representative of a frivolous and malicious society. On Friday, 2 December 1692, Mountford acted what must have been his final role, Alexander in The Rival Queens.
Mountfort's life ended at the height of his fame, in the most spectacular and dramatic murder of its time. The notorious Lord Mohun, then age fifteen, frequented the playhouse in 1692, often in the company of Captain Richard Hill, age twenty. Hill hoped to win the affections of Anne Bracegirdle, known not only for her beauty and acting ability, but also for her chastity—supposedly a scarce virtue among the actresses of the time. In A Comparison between the Two Stages, the following dialogue takes place:
Sullen: But does that Romantick Virgin [Bracegirdle] still keep up her great Reputation?
Critick: D'ye mean her Reputation for Acting?
Sullen: I mean her Reputation for not acting; you understand me—....[5]