Fabulous flexion

Someone ought to conduct a study to find out whether gym attendance spikes every time Cirque du Soleil visits the area. Surely it must, because it’s impossible to watch the feats executed by these skilled, sculpted performers without longing to acquire their muscle tone, not to mention their mastery.

Cirque, for its part, seems to realize it has this effect, because the act of transformation has always been central to its theatrical displays of gymnastics, dexterity, balance and strength. The performers are presented as inhabitants of wondrous worlds not so very different from our own, and the framework stories often involve ordinary people transported to these worlds, to emerge changed forever.

“Quidam” is perhaps the purest expression of this mythology. A decade after its first visit, the traveling show has returned, this time in a big top -- or grand chapiteau, as the Quebec-based circus calls it -- beside the Queen Mary in Long Beach.

The framing story focuses on a youngster who’s being typically ignored one day -- Dad’s buried behind a newspaper, Mom is absorbed in the radio -- when a headless figure appears at the door, wrapped in an overcoat, beneath an umbrella. Dad and Mom remain oblivious as the figure, which looks to have emerged from a Magritte painting, drops its bowler hat and disappears. When the youngster tries on the hat, her house vanishes and she finds herself in Cirque’s magical realm.

The first act encountered in this parallel universe involves a gymnast (Shayne Courtright) whose outstretched limbs are spokes inside a giant metal wheel.

He thus becomes a three-dimensional incarnation of “Vitruvian Man,” that famed illustration in which Leonardo da Vinci depicted the perfect proportion, symmetry and harmony of the human body.

The oversize spools sent spinning into the air by four young acrobats repeat the wheel imagery, as do the overhead rings into which three aerialists curve their bodies, becoming Art Deco sculptures.

Bodies are more sharply stretched into “Vitruvian” Ts and Xs as solo performer Anna Venizelos and later a team of five aerialists revolve, yo-yo-like, down long strands of hanging cloth or rope.

Birth -- or, more to the point, rebirth -- is evoked as a man (Jerome Le Baut) and woman (Asa Kubiak) emerge from a womb-like mass of bodies, then proceed to execute a contortion and strength act in which only their combined senses of balance keep her upside-down body mortared, shoulder to shoulder, to his.

Human potential is further demonstrated in a group act that turns strongmen into human trampolines as they use their arms to propel gymnasts into the air.

Clumps of gray-looking people shuffle through every once in a while to remind us of what life can be like if we should lose our curiosity or our capacity for amazement.

The international cast may be different from the one seen 10 years ago, but the acts in this Franco Dragone-directed production are essentially the same. That doesn’t, however, mean this show is old hat.

The power of “Quidam,” one of Cirque’s best shows ever, remains undiminished.

And as with all Cirque shows, its magic doesn’t end at the performance’s conclusion, especially if, in addition to feeling ennobled by our contact with these Olympian performers, we’re motivated to explore what more ordinary mortals might accomplish.

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‘Quidam’

Where: Next to the Queen Mary at the end of the 710 Freeway, Long Beach

When: 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays, 4 and 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 1 and 5 p.m. Sundays

Ends: April 16

Price: $45 to $80; VIP, $195

Contact: (800) 678-5440 or www.cirquedusoleil.com

Running time: 2 hours, 35 minutes