[1] "Stritch’s epic struggle with her big number" serves as the climax to the 1970 documentary Original Cast Album: Company by D.A.
Stritch returned two days later, after a matinee performance of Company, and successfully recorded the final take for the album.
[2] Bustle magazine gives this synopsis: "'The Ladies Who Lunch' is a song that mockingly judges the rich and wealthy women who waste their middle-aged lives doing nothing meaningful, sung by Joanne (Stritch) while out at a nightclub with her third husband Larry and their friend Robert".
[3] The Wire called it Stritch's "signature song", while The New York Times' obituary named it "her theme, until her 70s, when Sondheim's 'I'm Still Here' from Follies took over".
But I can hear in Stritch's delivery, in the hard burn of her notes, that – no matter how many vodka stingers she downs – her character can't escape failure, boredom and loss.
[7][8][9][10] Barbra Streisand recorded the song in 1985 for her bestselling The Broadway Album, blended in a medley with Sondheim's "Pretty Women" from Sweeney Todd (1979).
The trio of Meryl Streep, Audra McDonald, and Christine Baranski performed the song, via Zoom during the pandemic quarantine, to commemorate Sondheim's 90th birthday.