It's back to basics for Cirque du Soleil in Atlanta

"We're doing less of the razzle dazzle; it's the human performance that's most important," he adds.

Cirque fans will know what Tremblay means by the razzle, not to mention the dazzle: the thundering music, the surreal sets and costumes, and the story lines that are intriguing but sometimes end up trailing off into incomprehensible vapor.

"With all the Cirque shows there's an underlying story, but it's kind of open what you take from it as your interpretation. With 'Kooza,' the story is quite simple," says Justin Sullivan, who plays The Trickster, one of the main characters who guides the audience through the story arc and the circus acts.

The back-to-basics approach means more emphasis on "Kooza's" acts, a gathering of the world's best circus performers. Highlights include:

•Anthony Gatto, a juggler who doesn't mess with chain saws or torches, but just juggles balls and rings faster than anyone can see.

•The Wheel of Death, in which Jimmy Ibarra Zapata and Carlos Enrique Marin Loaiza make like they're in some mid-air update of "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome."

•Yao Deng Bo, who takes chair-stacking to new heights— 23 feet high, to be exact. Of course, he sits atop the whole tower.

•Three female contortionists, frequently hailed in cities earlier on "Kooza's" tour for the sheer impossibility of what they do.

•And as always, Cirque clowns will work the audience before the show begins, inflicting humiliations major and minor on people who have paid significant money.

Just because the cast is touting "Kooza" as a back-to-basics show, however, keep in mind that the basics for Cirque du Soleil means an over-the-top mix of acrobatics, clowning, music and mysticism. The troupe formed in Quebec in the mid '80s and quickly became the most popular example of Europe's Cirque Nouveau movement.

Cirque du Soleil first astonished Atlantans in 1991 with "Nouvelle Experience." Cirque soon expanded its empire, setting down permanent shows in Disney World and Las Vegas, with five shows ultimately playing simultaneously in Vegas. Everything had to be bigger than what came before, whether it was licensing the Beatles's music for "Love," sexing up like crazy in "Zumanity" or performing underwater in "O."

So don't expect a bare stage, exactly. "Kooza's" set is dominated by a moving tower that also serves as a bandstand for the show's musicians, decorated in a Hindu motif. It supports a huge canopy that resembles sails, or petals of a giant flower.

The thread running through the show is pulled by the Trickster and his counterpart, the Innocent.

"The Innocent is this naive young boy," explains Sullivan. "The Trickster's job is to bring the Innocent into the world of discovery, just expose him to different things."

That's pretty much what Cirque does, particularly to first-time visitors.