Scenes From Court Life, or The Whipping Boy and His Prince

History, remixed. In 17th-century Great Britain, the Stuarts—Charles I and Charles II—defend their divine rights, with the help of a whipping boy. In our own time, Jeb and George W. Bush play hardball—both politics and tennis—battling for power, as siblings and statesmen. By turns intimate and epic, Sarah Ruhl’s astonishing new play reveals the cost of dynastic privilege.