Australian feminist Germaine Greer has branded fellow Aussie and playwright Joanna Murray-Smith an "insane reactionary'' for attempting to portray aspects of her life in a new comedy.
The Female of the Species, due to open in London's West End this week, is loosely based on snippets from the 69-year-old academic's life and serves up a humorous attack on strident feminism.
The play opens with a fictional student holding the main character, a feminist writer called Margot Mason, captive - reflecting Greer's own experience eight years ago when she was tied up by an obsessed pupil in her English home.
An outraged Greer, who rose to fame with the publication of The Female Eunuch in the 1970s, has refused to read the play or attend its opening night performance.
"Why do the production team and the writer keep on referring to me, Germaine Greer, if they say it is not Germaine Greer they are writing about,'' Greer told The Sunday Times.
"Murray-Smith is an insane reactionary who boasts that she has not read a single feminist text. She holds feminism in contempt.
'They call this a comedy. What actually happened was a tragedy. What are they doing putting this play on in the West End of all places? Auckland in New Zealand, maybe.''
Melbourne-based Murray-Smith says while her play is "not a character portrait of Greer it does attack aspects of Greer's brand of feminism''.
"There are many fallibilities among the women of Germaine's generation,'' she said.
"I'm sorry she has formed that opinion of me without having met me or read my work. It would take a braver woman than me to write about Greer directly.''
