Seun takes a trip into the traditional world of the housewife in a disconcerting piece of theatre called Home Suite.

As they enter the space one-by-one, seven in all, resplondant in their pinny-dresses, heels and red wigs, the cast of Home Suite look as though they have been recruited straight out of some 1950's version of Wysteria lane. For her latest project Katharine Fry has managed to conjure something extraordinary out of the ordinary. Deceptive from the outset, the play barely conceals its sinister undertone beneath the gleaming smiles and the identikit uniforms of its cast. Taking part in the play feels like being sucked into a Lynch movie.

The girls of Home suite

The play takes us behind the white picket fences, picture perfect gardens and Venetian blinds of suburbia. The story is based around the rituals and day-to-day chores of the atypical middle-class housewife. No time period is confirmed. Katharine has managed to succeed in displacing her audience - we’re in a home but not our own home - bringing a sense of awkwardness and intrusiveness that continues throughout, with the presence of the homeowner and family cementing this. No room in the house goes unused as the cast flit between kitchen, living room and bedroom as if the audience is not there, simultaneously losing themselves in their daily tasks and a distant fantasy.

Focusing on the particular relationship between housewife and the house she makes a home, Home Suite tells us of a different kind of romance far removed from the generic ideal we see in movies and on our TV screens. From near the outset you forgo any notion of a fairytale ending. A doorbell rings (well, it’s a house) and you wonder if a missing husband, long overdue, will return. Inevitably it’s latecomers to the show, quickly entering and attempting to orientate themselves into the performance space without disturbing anything.

This is the world in which Home Suite’s characters exist, attempting to find meaning in their situation, a perpetual series of never-ending tasks we have all seen performed a million times over as a child, adolescent and adult. Here, when you are seeing them performed as pretences, all nostalgia for the traditional ideal of the stay-at-home housewife is called into question. There's inescapable feeling of claustrophobia.

One hour and twenty minutes later the piece winds down. The characters, previously so distracted finally come to the end of their day to no obvious reward, collapsed on a sofa, eyes glazed over and still smiling into the distance. The audience is left to consider their future, a continuation of the never ending investment into the home, a distraction from a world beyond the doors or an escape? As the play draws to a close and you take it all in you watch each cast member and wonder about her story.

Her story is sad but true.

Home Suite is a series of site-specific performances commissioned by The Collective and funded by Arts Council England. The shows are free, but booking is essential. Find out details here.