Should you meet Harvey Fierstein when he is taking a break from rehearsal of “Bella Bella,” his new one-person show, do not suggest he is playing a woman.

He will gasp.

He will slap his palm to his chest.

And in a voice that in real life can only be described as — actually, all the old “gravel” clichés don’t come close so let’s not try — he will growl: “I DON’T PLAY A WOMAN. I AM A WOMAN.”

Then he will sip his diet Coke and launch back into running lines for the monologue he wrote and will star in, about the feminist New York lawyer and congresswoman Bella Abzug.

Late last month in a Manhattan Theater Club rehearsal room, he stood before a plywood approximation of the real set: a bathroom of the Summit Hotel in New York City, where, for some 85 minutes, Mr. Fierstein will channel Abzug , known for her quotable, take-no-prisoners manner, as she awaited election results from her 1976 bid to become the Democratic candidate for a United States Senate seat.