Abdelazer was first performed by the Duke's Company in the summer of 1676 and published the following year. Later in the century, Henry Purcell provided his still famous incidental music for the play. In 1695, when theatrical competition resumed in London after thirteen years in which only a single company had operated, Abdelazer was chosen by the established company to compete with the opening night of its new rival, which saw the première of Congreve's great comedy, Love for Love. The revival was not a success, and Abdelazer disappeared from the repertory.

The principal actors in the first performance were as follow:

• Thomas Betterton (1635–1710), Abdelazer. The leading actor of the period, he took a leading role in theater management after the death in 1668 of Sir William Davenant, the founder of the Duke's Company. He had an enormous range. Behn chiefly exploits his talent for portraying dangerous glamor (also exemplified in his portrayal of the icy seducer Dorimant in Etherege's The Man of Mode [1676]).

• Henry Harris (c. 1634–1704), Ferdinand. Along with Betterton and Smith, he was one of the chief Duke's Company actors in the 1660s and 1670s. He retired in 1682.

• William Smith (d. 1695), Philip. After Betterton, Smith was the leading Duke's Company actor and for some years was co-manager of the company with Betterton. He not only played many heroic tragic characters but also more ambiguous or intemperate roles, such as Philip in this play. In comedy, he generally took one of the two male leads, but he also created the vacuous Sir Fopling Flutter in Etherege's The Man of Mode.

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My Lord,

SInce the World is grown so Nice and Critical upon Dedications, and will Needs be judging the Book, by the Wit of the Patron; we ought, with a great deal of Circumspection, to chuse a Person against whom there can be no Exception; and whose Wit, and Worth, truly Merits all that one is capable of saying upon that Occasion.

The most part of Dedications are charg'd with Flattery; and if the World knows a Man has some Vices, they will not allow one to speak of his Virtues. This, my Lord, is for want of thinking Rightly; if Men wou'd consider with Reason, they wou'd have another sort of Opinion, and Esteem of Dedications; and wou'd believe almost every Great Man has enough to make him Worthy of all that can be said of him there. My Lord, a Picture-drawer, when he intends to make a good Picture, essays the Face many Ways, and in many Lights, before he begins; that he may chuse, from the several turns of it, which is most Agreeable, and gives it the best Grace; and if there be a Scar, an ungrateful Mole, or any little Defect, they leave it out; and yet make the Picture extreamly like: But he who has the good Fortune to draw a Face that is exactly Charming in all its Parts and Features, what Colours or Agreements can be added to make it Finer?