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Mr. Yu-Shian Deng, the father of Taiwan folk song, had created many representative songs, such as “Four Seasons,” “Moonlight Sorrow,” “Craving for Wind of Spring” and “Flowers in a Raining Night” during his thirty-nine-year short life. To celebrate Mr. Deng’s death centenary in 2005, Cultural Affairs Bureau of Hsinchu County Government published academic research on him. Performing arts groups also released several dramas based on the life and works of the Taiwanese composer. In those dramas, scriptwriters have been shaping many different characters from history. Most research still focuses on the analysis of Deng’s compositions and historical research. Due to the lack of the studies on how Deng is presented in dramas, I, in this paper, used “historical research,” “field survey” and “drama analysis” as the main research method to study “Take Yu-Shian Deng: The Road Back Home” directed by Hesper Lang from Stone Theatre and “April Rain” produced by ALL MUSIC. The research also incorporated “Yu-Shian Deng of the Past and Present: Yu-Shian Deng―centenary Image Series,” “Yu-Shian Deng''s Documentary Film Hope Rain in April” and “Viva Tonal the Dance Age” from Taiwan Public Television and movie respectively. I will discuss four themes, namely “family background and age,” “talent and dreams,” “feeling in the world” and “interpersonal relationship.” Through integration of historical sources and dramas, the differences between Mr. Deng’s life experiences and theatre image are revealed. The paper in the end will conclude Deng’s “family background and age” is best shown in “Take Yu-Shian Deng: The Road Back Home” and “April Rain.” Both dramas are set in the 1930s but with different family influences. The former focuses on Deng’s aunt’s inspiration on music while the latter on his father’s conformity to the anticipation of the ancestors, in which the offspring should be scholars of sinology, rather than composers. Scriptwriters apply Deng’s compositions and reveal his “talent and dreams” through the arrangement of the repertories. “Deng’s romance” can not be ignored. His close relation with popular music industry and his numerous creation on love make him the advocator of the new kind of thinking and the non-match making marriage. Because of all these factors, the plot of the dramas divert from reality and “Deng’s romance” is always the one differing the most from real life. Deng’s “interpersonal relationship” can be compared with his personality, aspirations and situations, all of which contributes to the multi-facets of Deng’s presentation in drama. Therefore, we learn from the paper that “Take Yu-Shian Deng: The Road Back Home” and “April Rain” reveal “The combination of the historical research and the association of the scriptwriters, ” “The rich display of music” and “The shape of the composer Deng and his contemporary.” Mr. Deng became I wish the references and the differences between modern personal characters and drama images about Mr. Deng will be provided via this research.
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