By Dominic Casciani BBC News Online community affairs reporter

A troubled father and son relationship

The first major play to tackle the crisis of gun violence within black communities has opened at the National Theatre. Do such current events make good drama?

Elmina's Kitchen, written by Kwame Kwei-Armah of BBC1's Casualty fame, tells the story of how Deli, an uncertain father, suddenly realises his son is taking the wrong route in life.

Deli's failing West Indian restaurant, named after his mother, is only frequented by the utterly sinister Digger (Shaun Parkes), an old friend and 'businessman' who ultimately prefers the company of the gun he carries.

All around them in east London's Hackney the talk is of violence and guns. Young men who think they have no prospects are finding respect through gangs. And there doesn't seem to be a lot that Deli can do about it.

Elmina's Kitchen goes deep into the consciousness of urban Black youth - from the influence of American rap music through to the generational debate over what it is to be part of Black Britain.

Even the name of Deli's restaurant has historic connotations: Elmina ('the mine') Castle was the most infamous European slave trading fort on the West African coast. You can still see it in modern day Ghana, sitting on the coast as a symbol of another holocaust against a different people.

But the play is very much rooted in what is happening today.

This year in London alone there have been five murders of young black men by other young black men toting guns. The 20 other shootings are an improvement on last year.

The Metropolitan Police's Operation Trident, the unit focusing on tackling gun crime affecting black communities, has seized 58 firearms, 702 rounds of ammunition and seen 257 years imprisonment handed out by the courts.

But the �15,570 of cash recovered remains a drop in the ocean in a drugs economy worth an estimated �500m in inner London.

A world outside the father's understanding

In Elmina's Kitchen, Kwame Kwei-Armah argues that the most pernicious problem is the belief among some young black men that they will only validate their black identity by going through 'some form of criminality or wear the dress of criminality'.

Paterson Joseph, who plays Deli, says many good people are simply blind to what it happening.

"Deli allows his son to get involved in a world that's just outside of his - and he does not really notice. That is the most surprising and shocking thing," says Paterson.

"Within his restaurant there's an archetypal gunman (Digger) but Deli just does not realise who this man really is."

Ashley, played by Emmanuel Idowu, has many of the characteristics of a small group of young men in his position, says Paterson.

"Ashley looks at his peer group and he wants the jewellery, the bling-bling, the whole thing that Deli can't give him," says Paterson.

"So he seeks the money, the glamour, the cars through the shortcut of drugs and crime.

"The world of drugs crime comes across as enticingly forceful and confident. But it's anything like that in reality.

"The image is one of being at war, especially with the white world. But it is also a war with the black world - and that is the really insidious thing about gun culture.

"These people don't consider themselves as lower than the rest of us. if anything they are more arrogant and confident. ''I've got a gun so that means I'm successful'."

Communities facing a choice

Just a few miles away from the comfortable surroundings of the National Theatre, you can find the locations of the play.

Pastor Nims Obunge knows a few things about gun crime as the head of the Haringey Peace Alliance, established in the wake of a rise in shootings in north London.

Elmina's Kitchen adds force to his message that urban communities blighted by crime have to make a choice before a generation is lost.

"This younger generation [of criminals] who are now carrying guns does not have the patience or the reasoning to negotiate in a situation," says Pastor Obunge.

"And so they will use them if they think they can get away with it. One young man I was talking to at Feltham [young offender's institute] told me that when he held a gun in his hand he felt 'untouchable'. That's a great sense of aggression.

"A society that does not make a united stand surrenders it's children to an uncertain future. And if this is the future, it's going to be vicious."

Fathers and sons

When matters come to a head between Deli and Ashley, what really matters is not their culture, history or ethnicity, but simply how they relate as father and son.

"Deli's own father was absent and he himself was in jail," says Paterson Joseph.

"Ashley, who now has his own baby, is asking what it means to be a man in today's society.

"Sometimes it means fighting a corner. But it also means standing up for what you believe in and to speak out because that's the morally right thing to do."

Elmina's Kitchen is a bold piece of theatre and it is to the credit of the National Theatre that they have taken it on. Don't go expecting to be uplifted. And don't expect it to offer any easy answers either - because Kwame Kwei-Armah hasn't given us any.