Force quit on a MacBook that uses a touchbar

I have a 2018 MacBook Pro with a Touchbar. Sometimes it will freeze up and I cannot access the Apple menu to run Force quit. Normally, you would be able to use Command+Option+Esc. However, the Command+Option+Esc method is not working for me. I'm thinking it may be because the Esc key is not a real key. I have no idea whether it is being registered. Is there any other way to issue a Force Quit without rebooting my system? PS. Making the Esc key a software-based key is not the smartest thing Apple could have done. **Update** In response to questions, one application that I am noticing this with the most is Audacity. I am processing a few hundred audio files using a macro. The macro is very simple: trim areas of silence, normalize, save as mp3. The script works perfectly on a Windows machine. Symptoms: Things just slow to a halt. I can move the mouse easily. But if I try to interact with anything on the Mac Desktop (through keyboard or mouse) things are very slow to respond. For example, just to open up Spotlight (Command-space) and type "terminal" takes about 10-15 minutes. Trying to open the Apple Menu it does not seem to respond (or maybe I'm just not waiting long enough).