As the Jeffrey Epstein juggernaut rolled across the media landscape earlier this year, transfixing the world with its grim stories of corruption and sexual abuse by powerful and well-connected men, a small group of female playwrights decided enough was enough: there was a glaring need for the story to be turned on its head, to focus on the suffering of the victims rather than the perpetrators.
The writers all belonged to a WhatsApp group. “I just put out a call,” says Rebecca Lenkiewicz. “I asked: ‘Is anyone else enraged about the Epstein files and how it’s all about the men and the money?’ It wasn’t just a question of what happened, but of how it is being dealt with by the press afterwards.” Lenkiewicz was all too familiar with the history of abusive and powerful men, being the screenwriter of She Said, about the struggle to bring Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein to justice.
