"Daisy in the Dreamtime" is a history lesson, but not linear and fact-crammed, like in school.

It's a colorful, entertaining, illuminating "walkabout" where so-called pragmatic Western assumptions about time, behavior, and religious certainties lose their bearings when they encounter spirit-based realities of Australian aborigine culture.

It also portrays real life aspects of an outspoken, eccentric Irishwoman, Daisy Bates, who moved to the outback in the 1920s and lived in harmony with the natives who renamed her Kabbarli, "queen."

Echo Theatre, the only Dallas company exclusively dedicated to performing women-written plays, presents this unique enterprise by national award-winning author Lynne Kaufman at the Bath House Cultural Center, with didgeridoo accompaniment by instrumentalist Mike Kenny.

The cave-like ambience of the Bath House's theater with its low ceiling and shadowy corners suits this production exceptionally well. Longtime set designer and visual artist Christopher Jenkins uses the space like an elongated canvass upon which to create an ethereal Rothko-like installation in vivid burnt orange and azure hues.