She branded her biographer a “dung beetle” and “bacterium”. Now Germaine Greer has derided as an “insane reactionary” the latest writer with the temerity to depict her.

Greer has directed her rage at The Female of the Species, a play that uses her life as the inspiration for a comic attack on strident feminism.

The play by Joanna Murray-Smith, which opens this week in London’s West End, takes as its starting point an episode in 2000 when Greer was held captive in her north Essex home by a deranged student.

Although the play uses fictional names and changes the facts of the story, there is no doubt about its real targets.

“Men aren’t our problem; old feminists are,” says Molly, the fictional student who holds Margot Mason, the play’s lead character.

Murray-Smith says her play “is not a character portrait of Greer”, but she is clear that the play is an attack on her brand of gender politics. “There are many fallibilities among the women of Germaine’s generation,” she said.

Despite the playwright’s disclaimers, Greer, 69, has taken the work as a direct personal attack. “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 said.

“Murray-Smith is an insane reactionary who boasts that she has not read a single feminist text. She holds feminism in contempt.”

Murray-Smith, who like Greer is Australian, replied: “I’m sorry she has formed that opinion of me without having met me or read my work.”

Greer also calls the play “threadbare”, although she has not read it. Roger Michell, the director, sent her a copy but, said Greer, “I sent it back”.

Michell is one of Britain’s most successful directors with credits including the films Notting Hill and Enduring Love. He had invited Greer to talk to the cast before the play opened. “I wrote to say that if she had some time to pop in when she was in London, then we would be delighted,” he said.

Greer was not flattered by the invitation. “Pop in and chat? What kind of offer is that?” she said. “I’m a really busy person, whose time is precious. I will not waste it.”

The kidnap on which the play is based started when Karen Burke, a Bath University student, entered Greer’s home through some open french windows. She had become obsessed with the author and saw her as a mother figure. She cried “Mummy, mummy” as she attacked Greer.

In the play, Molly handcuffs Margot Mason, the feminist academic who is played by Dame Eileen Atkins, and threatens her with a gun. Burke, who was later given two years’ probation, never made such a threat although she did tie up Greer.

The Female of the Species quickly develops into a biting comedy with Molly blaming Mason for ruining her life and that of other women with conflicting advice about men. “It would take a braver woman than me to write about Greer directly,” said Murray-Smith.

“However, my Margot does have many of Greer’s characteristics. Both are charismatic, outrageous and irritating. I’m interested in writing about ideological extremes and pomposity and the way ideology can fall apart through contradictions.”

Murray-Smith also says that she created Molly as much because she wonders “what happens to the fans who find that the intellectuals they admire then renege on their one-time beliefs.”

Throughout the play comments are made about Mason’s earlier books such as her bestseller The Cerebral Vagina — a possible reference to Greer’s 1970 book The Female Eunuch — as well as Ovary Schmovary and Ugly Cheating Bastards.

Murray-Smith insists that “despite what Greer says, I am a feminist”. Michell will still invite Greer to Thursday’s first night at the Vaudeville theatre — she says she will decline.

“They call this a comedy,” she said. “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.”

Fact and fiction

— A thinly disguised portrayal of Bob Dylan in the film Factory Girl in 2006 drew a flurry of legal warnings. Dylan claimed it gave the “utterly false” impression he had contributed to the suicide of Edie Sedgwick, troubled muse of Andy Warhol

— Tom and Viv, a play about TS Eliot and his first wife, was condemned by his widow Valerie as “dreadful” with its portrayal of the poet as an unpleasant social climber

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