After all the ordeals of Paramount’s rich ‘Next to Normal,’ the ultimate takeaway is hope

As Diana (Donna Louden) has episodes of manic depression, it falls to her husband, Dan (Barry DeBois), to keep the family intact in “Next to Normal.” (Liz Lauren)

With its stark, unflinching depiction of intractable mental illness and the vast uncertainties that accompany any attempt to treat it, “Next to Normal” is hardly a feel-good kind of musical. 

Still, it’s impossible to leave the Paramount Theatre’s staging of the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical without a buoyant sense of hope, not just for the afflicted family at the center of Tom Kitt (score) and Brian Yorkey’s (book and lyrics) Tony Award winner, but for anyone who has found themselves or a loved one sucked into the morass of treatment-resistant mood disorders.