But the Chinese, some experts say, are notably adept.
Republican strategists have been notably adept at shaping debates with phrases that pack an emotional wallop: "partial-birth abortion" for a form of late-term abortion that is resorted to infrequently; "elites" as virtually a synonym for liberals; "job creators" to ennoble the super-rich.
He assembles a remarkable cast, from the name actors playing the grownups to the relatively unfamiliar yet notably adept group playing the children, and he shapes their performances to a pointed aptness that seems to make the script leap from the screen.
The cast is wonderful, notably, the unfailingly adept Ms. Graff and Michael Countryman as Momolo, her husband -- helpless, helpful, utterly lifelike.
Between 1967 and 1970, he starred in No, That's Me Over Here!, a sitcom written by Cryer, Eric Idle and Graham Chapman, as a small insurance clerk with big ideas, always confounded by more adept office politicians (notably his lanky colleague Henry McGee).
He had a powerful arm, he was sure-handed in blocking pitches in the dirt, and he was adept at handling pitchers, notably Dwight Gooden and Ron Darling.
The cast — notably Rooney Mara and Kyle Gallner as Freddy's longest-surviving prey — are reasonably adept at screaming, crying, looking sleepy and earnestly delivering expository information they glean from research on the Internet and at the local bookstore.
Mr. Murray is equally adept at communicating directly with the audience, most notably in a postintermission speech that channels Mr. Albee's famous disgust with theatergoers' lazy attention spans and intellects.
Messud (who is married to the New Yorker writer James Wood) is adept at evoking complex psychological territory, and here favors a controlled and notably unreliable style of narration.
Here, meaning doesn't come hurtling at you in great expository chunks, as it often does in movies, but through an accretion of true-to-life details, notably in the hesitant gestures, offhand exchanges and sidelong glances (Mr. Katz is an adept choreographer of looks not quite met), the sighs and visible longings of people groping toward one another.
But he worries that a generation so adept at surfing the Internet remains largely untaught about China's recent history, notably the horrors of the Cultural Revolution when Mao plunged the country into chaos.
