The Life and Death of Doctor Faustus Made into a Farce

Christopher Marlowe

William Mountfort

Christopher Marlowe

The Life and Death of Doctor Faustus Made into a Farce

INTRODUCTION

According to "Some Account of the Life of Mr. W. Mountfort" prefixed to the collected plays of 1720, William Mountfort, successful playwright and actor, was born "the Son of Captain Mountfort, a Gentleman of a good Family in Staffordshire; and he spent the greatest Part of his Younger Years in that County, without being bred up to any Employment." Since "his Gaiety of Temper and Airy Disposition … could not be easily restrain'd to the solitary Amusements of a Rural Life,"[1 - Six Plays, written by Mr. Mountfort (London, 1720), 2 volumes. All references to plays other than "Dr. Faustus" are taken from this collection.] he set out to make his fortune in London, and was employed by the Duke's Company at the Dorset Garden Theater. First notice of him appears in the part of the "boy" in The Counterfeits, attributed to John Leanerd, and produced in May, 1678.[2 - The substance of my account of Mountfort's life and work is based on Albert S. Borgman, The Life and Death of William Mountfort (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1935).]

Mountfort was to win notice as an actor in the part of Talboy in Brome's The Jovial Crew, where as a rejected lover he was called upon for storms of comic tears. In his Apology, Cibber praises Mountfort in this part: "in his Youth, he had acted Low Humour, with great Success, even down to Tallboy in the Jovial Crew"[3 - An Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber, ed. B. R. S. Fone (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1968), p. 117.] and Mountfort himself alluded to his early success in the prologue to his first play, The Injured Lovers, where he defies the critics: "True Talboy to the last I'll Cry and Write."

Mountfort scored his first major success as an actor when he played the title role in Crowne's Sir Courtly Nice. The play's popularity owed much to Mountfort's acting of a part which recalls Etherege's Sir Fopling Flutter. The "Account" of 1720 says that Mountfort "gain'd a great and deserved Reputation, as a Player; particularly in Acting the part of Sir Courtly Nice," and Cibber, who was later to create the great Sir Novelty Fashion, says of Mountfort's Sir Courtly:

There his whole Man, Voice, Mien, and Gesture, was no longer Monfort, but another Person. There, the insipid, soft Civility, the elegant, and formal Mien; the drawling delicacy of Voice, the stately Flatness of his Address, and the empty Eminence of his Attitudes were … nicely observ'd.... If, some Years after the Death of Monfort, I my self had any Success, in either of these Characters, I must pay the Debt I owe to his Memory, in confessing the Advantages I receiv'd from the just Idea, and strong Impression he had given me, from his action them (Apology, p. 76).

In 1686, Mountfort married one of the attractive young actresses then appearing in London, Susanna Percival, and the Mountforts appeared together in a number of plays until his untimely death.

Mountfort brought his first play, The Injured Lovers: or, The Ambitious Father, a tragedy, to be acted at Drury Lane early in February, 1688. The play was not a great success. Gildon mentions that it "did not succeed as the Author wish'd,"[4 - Charles Gildon, The Lives and Characters of the English Dramatick Poets (London, [1698?]), p. 102.] although the play was brilliantly cast, with Betterton, Mrs. Bracegirdle, and Mrs. Barry in chief parts. Mountfort himself played second lead to Betterton, and the comedians Leigh, Jevon, and Underhill appeared in boisterous roles. But this rather extravagant account of passion and thwarted love did not take. Such lines as the heroine's "Thy Antelina, she shall be the Pile / On which I'll burn, and as I burn I'll smile," reveals an uncertain poetic talent. In the prologue Mountfort manages more wit:

JO. Hayne's Fate is now become my Share,

For I'm a Poet, Marry'd, and a Player:

The greatest of these Curses is the First;

As for the latte