THINKING ABOUT THE LONGSTANDING PROBLEMS OF VIRTUE...

THINKING ABOUT THE LONGSTANDING PROBLEMS OF VIRTUE AND HAPPINESS: Essays, a Play, Two Poems and a Prayer by Tony Kushner (Theatre Communications Group: $13.95; 224 pp., paperback original). These recent works by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “Angels in America” showcase Tony Kushner’s ability to shift from tragedy to farce with seemingly effortless grace. He castigates conservative politicians and lightheartedly compares playwriting to baking lasagna. In a moving invocation written for the 1994 Episcopalian National Day of Prayer for AIDS, Kushner chastises a seemingly indifferent God in the tones of a fond Jewish mother, then mourns, “We have ashes, and graves and grief so overtopping it can no longer be recognized as grief, but has become a kind of dark amazement that so much can be endured; you hide your face from us.”